Best CF Card for a D700?

NikonsandVstroms

So of course not 24 hours after I write up a big post on memory cards in another thread one of my own decides to kick the bucket. It's a Transcend 32GB 400x CF card and after 5 years it it's saying that it needs formatted in both my computer and camera, and then neither can format it.

The last time I seriously shopped for a CF card was that Transcend so what's out there today that's compatible with a D700? What brands are the best in your experience for reliability? And I'd be open to another Transcend, I moved this card to being a backup as of late due to its age but 5 years of regular use is acceptable to me.

This new card would be going to replace my 3 year old one (same model) as my primary card but an additional question, does anyone have experience with returning Transcend memory cards under warranty? How long should I expect for the replacement to take?

ziggy53

I don't have a D700, but it is a pretty old design and large CF cards did not exist beyond 8GB when it was designed. To confound the issue, there appear to be both A and B circuit versions, with slightly different firmware for each version.

Firmware updates through 2012 brought the camera up to 32GB compliance, and the last firmware for the camera, issued in 2013, allows 64GB cards. (The 64GB cards require a different File Allocation Table design from the other cards.)

For the English version of the last firmware, which I believe also properly identifies your camera body type to install the correct firmware version for your body type, I believe that you can use this link:

http://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/download/fw/15.html

As far as compatible cards, I suggest reading:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/camera_wb_multi_pagedcf0.html?cid=6007-9550

The Lexar Professional 1000X were the top performers, and next the SanDisk Extreme 60MB/s, with the Lexar cards around 10 percent faster.

The current fastest Lexar CF cards are 1066x (I think), so I also searched for them.

A discussion of the latest 1066x Lexar cards. If you really need the speed, these seem the way to go:

https://www.flickr.com/groups/nikond700/discuss/72157645511074519/

I'm not seeing too much compatibility issues from either Lexar or Sandisk and the D700, so I suppose if you want the best value then the cheapest of the ones I mentioned above would probably suffice.

Regarding Transcend, I have purchased Transcend cards for personal use in both CF and SD form factors and I was generally pleased with both performance and durability, but I will not use them for client/paying work. This is mostly a personal choice, but it's based on the component choices Transcend uses in its cards.

I will also say that I have had occasional card failures with even SanDisk and Lexar brand cards, but I have never had a total failure (so far) with either of those brands. Failures were of the occasional type and limited to individual files.