CF recommendations

doyle · June 17, 2004

Hi All,

I have a Canon A80 that comes with the 32MB CF memory. Obviously I want to upgade for more capacity. Any recommendations on brand, type, size, etc... It would be greatly appreciated.

doyle

wxwax · June 17, 2004

Hi doyle.

Welcome aboard!

Pretty much any established brand will work for you. Among the leading brands are Lexar, Sandisk, Transcend. I'm not sure your camera would benefit from the speedier cards (40X etc.) so you can save a little money there.

Personally, I'd go for a 512mb or a 1GB. That way, one card will do you for a while, unless you shoot several hundred shots a day. Others feel that rather than put your faith in one card, it's better to have smaller cards and change them more often, thus safeguarding against card failure. For what it's worth, I've never had a card fail, I've only had the occasional frame fail to fully appear.

DoctorIt · June 17, 2004

size is up to you, but for an A80 (no RAW file capability) you shouldn't really need much more than a 512mb card for all day, maybe more shooting. Brand: doesn't matter too much, Lexar and Sandisk are the big players right now.

www.ecost.com is a great place to at least start. I would think almost no one buys CF in stores, always seems so much more expensive than online.

philspace · June 17, 2004

I have been using a Sandisk 1GB in my old Minolta for over a year. I picked up a Sandisk Ultra II for use in my new Canon Rebel and have found a significant speed difference in writing images from the camera and using the card with my USB 2.0 reader - for the difference in $$$ I think it's worth it. As for size, probably don't need a gig, but the faster cards (at least the Sandisk) do help if you are shooting in continuous mode or want to copy a bunch of big images to your pc quickly.

DoctorIt · June 17, 2004

philspace wrote:

I have been using a Sandisk 1GB in my old Minolta for over a year. I picked up a Sandisk Ultra II for use in my new Canon Rebel and have found a significant speed difference in writing images from the camera and using the card with my USB 2.0 reader - for the difference in $$$ I think it's worth it. As for size, probably don't need a gig, but the faster cards (at least the Sandisk) do help if you are shooting in continuous mode or want to copy a bunch of big images to your pc quickly.

you can tell a difference in speds with the drebel? I love mine, but god is it slow to write. If there is a difference in speed between my normal 1gb sandisk card and my 512mb Ultra II, it is barely perceptible. I'm pretty sure the Rob Gailbrath database confirms that.

DoctorIt · June 17, 2004

wxwax wrote:

For what it's worth, I've never had a card fail, I've only had the occasional frame fail to fully appear.

Aw man, you're brave. I'd never say something like that.

doyle · June 17, 2004

Great info, thanks everyone!

doyle · June 18, 2004

OK, after some research from the responses I have a few follow up questions. Forgive my ignorance. Specs say that my A80 takes a Type I CF card. Can anyone explain the difference between Type I and Type II?

I see some good recommendations for the Sandisk Ultra II, but is that a Type II? Would it work in my A80? Also, pricing for CF cards seem to be all over the place. I found some good deals on Amazon, but have never bought through Amazon before, any endorsements or warnings in dealing with Amazon.com? Again, thanks for all the help. I am sorta getting back into photography after a long hiatus, digital is fairly new to me.

DoctorIt · July 8, 2004

doyle wrote:

OK, after some research from the responses I have a few follow up questions. Forgive my ignorance. Specs say that my A80 takes a Type I CF card. Can anyone explain the difference between Type I and Type II?

I see some good recommendations for the Sandisk Ultra II, but is that a Type II? Would it work in my A80? Also, pricing for CF cards seem to be all over the place. I found some good deals on Amazon, but have never bought through Amazon before, any endorsements or warnings in dealing with Amazon.com? Again, thanks for all the help. I am sorta getting back into photography after a long hiatus, digital is fairly new to me.

This is a seriously late reply, but an easy one... you probably already found the answer, but I'm easing back after a 2 week hiatus.

Type I is regular solid state compact flash
Type II is the microdrive (small moving parts)

they look practically the same, type II card is just a little bit fatter. Don't know if the A80 takes both kinds.

jimf · July 8, 2004

DoctorIt wrote:

you can tell a difference in speds with the drebel? I love mine, but god is it slow to write. If there is a difference in speed between my normal 1gb sandisk card and my 512mb Ultra II, it is barely perceptible. I'm pretty sure the Rob Gailbrath database confirms that.

With my DRebel there is a very significant difference in speed between the 1G microdrive and Lexar 512M 22x CF I have, but no noticable difference between the 22x and 1G 40x cards. The fastest I can seem to get is about 5sec per frame in RAW mode.

There is a huge difference in performance between the 22x and 40x when pulling the data off the card onto the computer via a firewire reader.

DoctorIt · July 9, 2004

jimf wrote:

With my DRebel there is a very significant difference in speed between the 1G microdrive and Lexar 512M 22x CF I have, but no noticable difference between the 22x and 1G 40x cards. The fastest I can seem to get is about 5sec per frame in RAW mode.

There is a huge difference in performance between the 22x and 40x when pulling the data off the card onto the computer via a firewire reader.

Yes, i should have clarified - the reader can blaze as fast as the card can go, but the poor Drebel just tops out. Unfortunately, the top is I think well below the "fast" cards.

pathfinder · July 9, 2004

jimf wrote:

With my DRebel there is a very significant difference in speed between the 1G microdrive and Lexar 512M 22x CF I have, but no noticable difference between the 22x and 1G 40x cards. The fastest I can seem to get is about 5sec per frame in RAW mode.

There is a huge difference in performance between the 22x and 40x when pulling the data off the card onto the computer via a firewire reader.

I am using a 4Gig MicroDrive with a 10D and I agree that it is markedly slower when being written too than fast compact flash like a Sandisk UltraII 1 Gb chip.

I chose to use the Microdrive for the convenience of almost ulimited storage. But if I were to be shooting sports with the multiple frame mode I would use the faster compact flash for the increased speed when frames are written to it.

jimf · July 9, 2004

pathfinder wrote:

I am using a 4Gig MicroDrive with a 10D and I agree that it is markedly slower when being written too than fast compact flash like a Sandisk UltraII 1 Gb chip.

What kind of write speed do you get with a fast CF using the 10D? I'm considering upgrading to the 10D to improve performance.

wxwax · July 9, 2004

Doyle, sorry man, dropped the ball on you 3 weeks ago. I didn't see your question. The only difference between CF Type I and II is the thickness of the card. All else is the same. Here's a link with info.

If the only difference is the width, and your camera specifies Type I only, then it sounds like the CF slot on your camera is too narrow to accept Type II.

Here's another link that says the same thing.

CF recommendations

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