Sandisk 4GB Ultra II or Sandisk 4GB Extreme III

tango3

I have a 40D and i was just wondering which one of these are more worth it?

ziggy53

tango3 wrote:

I have a 40D and i was just wondering which one of these are more worth it?

Tango3, welcome to the Digital Grin.

I use the 2 Gig and 4Gig Ultra II cards and I find the speeds more than satisfactory. If you happen to find the Extreme III for only a little more, and that happens if you just search evry once in a while, it's a bit faster, so why not?

Not a dramatic difference either way.

There might be more of a difference in transfer from a card reader into the computer, if that's important to you.

A good comparison of cards here:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007

Scott_Quier

- I shoot with 30D cameras and and the Ultra II 2GB cards. I've found that this card/camera paring is a good fit. As Ziggy says, there will probably be a difference in speed when using a card reader to transfer the data from the card to your computer. But, in camera, the bottle-neck in the data through-put is the camera buffer, not the card speed.

tango3

Thanks Scott and Ziggy.

I looked at that link and saw that theirs not much speed difference between those 2 CF card. So i will get the Ultra II. I would have gotten the Extreme III but almost everywhere is sold out. I also don't really care about the speed from the transfer to my computer. I will also get a SanDisk Extreme USB2.0 Flash Reader.


Thanks

Rocketman766

new life to an old thread... I currently use the sandisk Ultra II 4 gig card (15MB write speed) in my Xsi. I am just about ready to jump into shooting my daughters Cheer competitions in Raw but I am concerned about the burst mode speeds. The Xsi will shoot up to 6 shots in Raw in continuous mode but the file size is 12meg. Now if the camera can shoot 3.5 shots per second, assuming it does this with Raw files also, can the Ultra II handle this? Do I need to step up with a faster card to shoot burst in Raw?

ziggy53

Rocketman766 wrote:

new life to an old thread... I currently use the sandisk Ultra II 4 gig card (15MB write speed) in my Xsi. I am just about ready to jump into shooting my daughters Cheer competitions in Raw but I am concerned about the burst mode speeds. The Xsi will shoot up to 6 shots in Raw in continuous mode but the file size is 12meg. Now if the camera can shoot 3.5 shots per second, assuming it does this with Raw files also, can the Ultra II handle this? Do I need to step up with a faster card to shoot burst in Raw?

Short bursts are handled by the camera's built-in shot buffer. A card can affect the ability of the camera to clear the buffer.

According to Rob Galbraith, Sandisk Extreme III make up the fastest 4 cards tested of the top 9 for the Canon XSi:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-9424

Yes, there is a significant improvement over the Ultra II.

Remember too that as a card gets filled to capacity it will slow down. My recommendation, based on my own experience and resulting strategy, is to fill the card to approximately 75%-80% capacity and then change out the card for a fresh card.

I guess I should follow with a statement that may not be obvious; if you want to shoot longer bursts, you should be looking at a camera with a deeper shot buffer. The Canon XSi is not a particularly appropriate sports camera for a number reasons and the shallow buffer is one of those reasons.

Rocketman766

Thanks for the info. I will keep this in mind as I progress thru my learning curve. All great info. I think the longest burst that I will be shooting is no longer than 5 or 6 seconds, 10 seconds tops...(jpeg only for the long burst) and that is only to please my wife with a tumbling pass. If I ever get good enough to do this professionally, I will indeed keep that info about choosing another body for sports shots. Just to be safe, I will pick up an Extreme III..also I have to say, the Xsi was chosen for me as a Xmas gift and I am extremely thankful for that so I will continue to learn on it and then upgrade later. Once again, thanks for the info.