Posted by Mike Sellers on October 1, 2008 at 5:10 PM
I just acquired a Canon 1ds markII and I was wondering what brand of card to get. Are all cards about equal in quality?
Posted by Steve Foss on October 1, 2008 at 5:19 PM
Mike, good for you. Great body!
CF card brands are not necessarily equal in quality. Some of the least expensive cards are not durable and are slow to write and transfer data. I'm not aware of any problems with specific brands of top quality cards and Canon bodies, though there were some issues several years ago with some Lexar cards, if memory serves.
Even within the same brand there are different grades of durability/speed. If you get the best SanDisk or Lexar cards you can afford, just to name two major brands, you'll be in good shape.
With the 21 Mp body you've got, I'd guess you'll need at least 4 Gb cards if you are shooting jpeg, and 8 or 16 Gb cards for shooting RAW. I'm not one to get giant cards because a card can fail, and if all your image eggs are in one basket you've lost the whole shooting match.
I use SanDisk Extreme III cards, as well as a couple Lexar Professional cards. Both bunches are one generation old, because the Extreme IV cards have been out awhile.
Good news is, CF cards have come WAY down in price!
So that's just my perspective. There are others . . .
Posted by David Bostedo on October 1, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Steve brought up another argument that people go 'round and 'round about. Multiple cards means you don't lose the whole days shoot, but it also means you're more likely to get a fail in the first place. I do come out in agreement with Steve.
Other than size, as Steve mentioned, speed can be important for the amount of data you may be shooting with that camera. Sandisk is running some AMAZING rebates right now. Check out the deals at Adorama :
Posted by John Mumaw on October 1, 2008 at 7:07 PM
Congratulations!
Here's a 1Ds MkII CF Write Speed Chart for you to read. As you'll see, there's not a lot of difference between the top 15 cards listed. It's slightly dated as you'll note that the largest card there is 2GB.
Posted by Steve Foss on October 1, 2008 at 7:17 PM
David, just a minor point of correction. Your second link, labeled an 8 Gb card, goes to a 16 Gb card (which the price difference reflects).
Wish I'd have known about those deals. While I bought two Extreme III 4 Gb cards a couple months ago (and had no trouble getting the Sandisk rebate), I just bought an Extreme III 8 Gb card (new in box with UPC removed) from a third party for $60.
Caveat emptor!
Posted by David Bostedo on October 1, 2008 at 7:29 PM
Thanks for the correction Steve - I've fixed it. Stupid cut and paste error. Anyway, I guess we're in the same boat with bad purchase timing...
Posted by Steve Foss on October 1, 2008 at 8:08 PM
David P, I bet we could work something out, you and I.
Posted by Mike Sellers on October 1, 2008 at 11:19 PM
Is Transcend a high quality SD HC card? Amazon has 8gb for $17.00. Which leads me to my next question-SD HC or CF cards??
Posted by John Mumaw on October 1, 2008 at 11:26 PM
I think it is.
I've owned them before and never had a problem.
If you looked at that write speed chart, you would have seen 4 Transcend cards on it..
Posted by David Bostedo on October 2, 2008 at 9:00 AM
Mike - The main reason some people like CF is that they are a little larger, therefore a little easier for some to handle. By the same token, the SD are a bit smaller, and easier to store. Of course those are little nits, and there's no difference in quality between them that I've heard.
The only other reason to choose one over the other for most people is compatability with other devices. If you want to share cards with a pocket cam, for instance, it's very like to take SD cards. Some TVs also take SD cards directly, and so does the Nintendo Wii (those are just what I've actually used - some things may take CF as well, but I think it's much less common).
And that Transcend card, if it's the "75X" one that I see, will run slightly slower in your camera than a higher speed card. Of course if you don't take a lot of pictures in succession you might not notice. If you check the speed data linked to above, you'll see that 8GB cards tend to slow down. And the 4 GB 120X Transcend in the test was slower than the 8 GB Sandisk Extreme III (which is 133X). This is something you'll notice a lot, is that different companies real world speed vs. actual speeds tends to vary. Lexar, Sandisk, and a couple of others seem to be best in this regard from what I've seen.
Call me a pragmatist or a fogie, but I match the card size to my anticipated storage media when traveling. It's unbelievably handy for me to use 4G cards right now because I'm backing up to DVDs. No shuffling and sorting on the road. Just drag and drop and you're done.
On the speed thing, I've got cards stretching back to the days when I needed more capacity than I could afford and bought several 340MB microdrives at $450 each because it was cheaper than comparable CF cards. I gotta say that the 4G Sandisc Extreme IV's "seem" about twice as fast as my III's and ten times faster than my II's. No math or actual measuring there, just a comparative difference when mixing and matching on a job or later when downloading. Lots of foot tapping, fidgeting and cussing while waiting for the older cards to download in shooting breaks or at the end of the day, much less while waiting for the buffer to do it's thing in the camera while on a shoot.
And a final point on speed, I recently bought a high end USB II reader on a road trip because I left my Sandisc Extreme firewire reader at home (Doh!). Once I got home I took insane delight in laying that USB reader on the ground, enthusiastically stomping it a couple of times, and throwing the pieces in the trash.
Sheeesh!!!!!!
I don't care what any ad or test sezz, those USB readers STINK compared to firewire.
Posted by David Bostedo on October 2, 2008 at 1:35 PM
That's probably because in actual use USB 2 is way slower than Firewire Hank...but all you ever see advertised is the absolute max speed rating which is pretty similar. The ability to actually stay at that speed stinks with USB 2. There is a USB 3 coming that will be 10 times as fast as USB 2 (4800 MB/s compared to 480 MB/s) and should put both USB and Firewire to shame. Probably not until later next year though, or possibly 2010 from what I've heard. Then of course you need a new port on your computer and a new card reader - it never ends...
Yeah. I'm so burned with the whole USB thing, I think I'll wait till the 3 "matures" a bit before considering an investment. I kinda suspect the firewire folks aren't sitting on their laurels, so something to compete must be growing in the wings.
I bought a couple of Western Digital portable hard drives because they were cheap, and unfortunately they're USB. I've also got a very old Wiebetech firewire drive. The USB drives are so slow, I basically leave them to finish a job while I go to lunch or go to bed. That "slow" old Wiebetech is so much faster that it fits easily into my normal workflow- virtually as fast as using the onboard drives in either my desktops or laptop. WD may be the latest best thing, but I'll not be buying any more unless they're firewire. Period.
Posted by David Bostedo on October 2, 2008 at 2:18 PM
I kinda suspect the firewire folks aren't sitting on their laurels, so something to compete must be growing in the wings.
Yep - Firewire S1600 and S3200 (up to 3200 Mb/s) are probably coming next year. For some reason, while Firewire has been better, it hasn't been adopted nearly as much as USB. This is probably partly because it's been more of an Apple thing (it's actually called IEEE standard 1394 - "Firewire" is the name Apple coined I think). But even though my 5 year old PC laptop has a Firewire port, it's still hard to find Firewire devices. I've never actually used the port. My phone, cameras, MP3 player, card reader, printers, portable drives, mouse, and game controller have all been USB. I probably could have gotten a Firewire card reader, but they were more expensive and the slower one doesn't bother me as I don't shoot that much.
(And a correction to what I have above...the numbers for USB should be Mb/s, not MB/s - that's bits, not bytes)
Posted by Steve Foss on October 2, 2008 at 7:27 PM
I have a USB2 card reader but both my backup hard drives are Firewire. My Mac G4 desktop only has two firewire ports. The card reader operates pretty slowly on that desktop, but that's only because it is older and has a slower processor and less RAM than our G4 laptop. The card reader, even with USB2, is fast as lightning when hooked up to the laptop compared with the desktop.
Posted by Mike Sellers on October 2, 2008 at 11:35 PM
I guess I`m more interested in reliability than speed. I have read that on the Canon you can use two cards and it will write the same file to both cards so you can have a backup in the camera. I like this idea. For anyone I found this at Amazon -Transcend 8GB SDHC CARD (SD 2.0 SPD Class 6)- for $9.99 thru Cameta Camera-seems like a good deal to me.
Posted by Steve Foss on October 2, 2008 at 11:58 PM
Cameta Camera has great ratings on resellerratings.com.
They have some pretty good prices, and reviews to go along with many of the cards. I've boughten all of mine through them, a few different flavors, and haven't had an issue with any of them so far...
Posted by Bill Chambers on October 3, 2008 at 10:56 AM
Mike, be careful where you buy whatever card you decide on. Buy from a reputable company like B&H, Adorama, Newegg, etc. The cards you buy off ebay are notorious for being counterfeit cards. As always, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Posted by Paul DeCesare on October 3, 2008 at 2:33 PM
I've used Newegg.com for years and they are top notch... most of your IT pros go there, more than consumers, but they are legit. The return policy is stricter than Amazon, but if you know what you want you can get great deals.
BTW, be careful if you buy a SanDisk card expecting the rebate. Amazon is NOT part of the rebate this time around! (This may have been mentioned above, haven't read the whole thread).
I have never had a CF card fail on me, thank the Lord. I DO format it every time I unload the shots, wonder if that's why.
Discussion
20 repliesCF card brands are not necessarily equal in quality. Some of the least expensive cards are not durable and are slow to write and transfer data. I'm not aware of any problems with specific brands of top quality cards and Canon bodies, though there were some issues several years ago with some Lexar cards, if memory serves.
Even within the same brand there are different grades of durability/speed. If you get the best SanDisk or Lexar cards you can afford, just to name two major brands, you'll be in good shape.
With the 21 Mp body you've got, I'd guess you'll need at least 4 Gb cards if you are shooting jpeg, and 8 or 16 Gb cards for shooting RAW. I'm not one to get giant cards because a card can fail, and if all your image eggs are in one basket you've lost the whole shooting match.
I use SanDisk Extreme III cards, as well as a couple Lexar Professional cards. Both bunches are one generation old, because the Extreme IV cards have been out awhile.
Good news is, CF cards have come WAY down in price!
So that's just my perspective. There are others . . .
Other than size, as Steve mentioned, speed can be important for the amount of data you may be shooting with that camera. Sandisk is running some AMAZING rebates right now. Check out the deals at Adorama :
8 GB Extreme III for $16.95 after $40 rebate
16 GB Extreme III for $24.95 after $90 rebate
The rebates can be a bit of a pain to get, but it's such a great deal...(of course, I bought 2 4GB ones a couple of weeks ago
These are great cards, and nearly top end from Sandisk. Also check out this page for card/camera speed ratings.
Here's a 1Ds MkII CF Write Speed Chart for you to read. As you'll see, there's not a lot of difference between the top 15 cards listed. It's slightly dated as you'll note that the largest card there is 2GB.
Wish I'd have known about those deals. While I bought two Extreme III 4 Gb cards a couple months ago (and had no trouble getting the Sandisk rebate), I just bought an Extreme III 8 Gb card (new in box with UPC removed) from a third party for $60.
Caveat emptor!
I've owned them before and never had a problem.
If you looked at that write speed chart, you would have seen 4 Transcend cards on it..
The only other reason to choose one over the other for most people is compatability with other devices. If you want to share cards with a pocket cam, for instance, it's very like to take SD cards. Some TVs also take SD cards directly, and so does the Nintendo Wii (those are just what I've actually used - some things may take CF as well, but I think it's much less common).
And that Transcend card, if it's the "75X" one that I see, will run slightly slower in your camera than a higher speed card. Of course if you don't take a lot of pictures in succession you might not notice. If you check the speed data linked to above, you'll see that 8GB cards tend to slow down. And the 4 GB 120X Transcend in the test was slower than the 8 GB Sandisk Extreme III (which is 133X). This is something you'll notice a lot, is that different companies real world speed vs. actual speeds tends to vary. Lexar, Sandisk, and a couple of others seem to be best in this regard from what I've seen.
On the speed thing, I've got cards stretching back to the days when I needed more capacity than I could afford and bought several 340MB microdrives at $450 each because it was cheaper than comparable CF cards. I gotta say that the 4G Sandisc Extreme IV's "seem" about twice as fast as my III's and ten times faster than my II's. No math or actual measuring there, just a comparative difference when mixing and matching on a job or later when downloading. Lots of foot tapping, fidgeting and cussing while waiting for the older cards to download in shooting breaks or at the end of the day, much less while waiting for the buffer to do it's thing in the camera while on a shoot.
And a final point on speed, I recently bought a high end USB II reader on a road trip because I left my Sandisc Extreme firewire reader at home (Doh!). Once I got home I took insane delight in laying that USB reader on the ground, enthusiastically stomping it a couple of times, and throwing the pieces in the trash.
Sheeesh!!!!!!
I don't care what any ad or test sezz, those USB readers STINK compared to firewire.
I bought a couple of Western Digital portable hard drives because they were cheap, and unfortunately they're USB. I've also got a very old Wiebetech firewire drive. The USB drives are so slow, I basically leave them to finish a job while I go to lunch or go to bed. That "slow" old Wiebetech is so much faster that it fits easily into my normal workflow- virtually as fast as using the onboard drives in either my desktops or laptop. WD may be the latest best thing, but I'll not be buying any more unless they're firewire. Period.
Yep - Firewire S1600 and S3200 (up to 3200 Mb/s) are probably coming next year. For some reason, while Firewire has been better, it hasn't been adopted nearly as much as USB. This is probably partly because it's been more of an Apple thing (it's actually called IEEE standard 1394 - "Firewire" is the name Apple coined I think). But even though my 5 year old PC laptop has a Firewire port, it's still hard to find Firewire devices. I've never actually used the port. My phone, cameras, MP3 player, card reader, printers, portable drives, mouse, and game controller have all been USB. I probably could have gotten a Firewire card reader, but they were more expensive and the slower one doesn't bother me as I don't shoot that much.
(And a correction to what I have above...the numbers for USB should be Mb/s, not MB/s - that's bits, not bytes)
Have you checked on newegg.com?
They have some pretty good prices, and reviews to go along with many of the cards. I've boughten all of mine through them, a few different flavors, and haven't had an issue with any of them so far...
BTW, be careful if you buy a SanDisk card expecting the rebate. Amazon is NOT part of the rebate this time around! (This may have been mentioned above, haven't read the whole thread).
I have never had a CF card fail on me, thank the Lord. I DO format it every time I unload the shots, wonder if that's why.