CF Cards for a 1D MII

RogersDA · October 21, 2010

Is there a max write speed that the 1D MII has such that it would be overkill to get very-high-end CF cards? You see CF cards on B&H, for example, that cost $500 each (no thank you) and the standard Kingston card that is $79.00 each.

Of course, I am probably going to get a few of the Kingston-priced cards.

I am just curious more than anything else.

W.W. Webster · October 21, 2010

Is this any help?

ziggy53 · October 21, 2010

The Canon 1D MKII does not have UDMA technology, so UDMA cards are pretty much wasted. (The 1D MKII is 2004 technology after all.) I would stick with 2G and 4G cards and the Sandisk cards do seem to run a little faster than Lexar of the same basic grade. The new Sandisk "Ultra" series, 30 MB/s, 200x are probably a good fit.

Likewise the SD cards beyond class 4 are probably not needed and you need the latest firmware for the 1D MKII/MKIIN to support SDHC.

RogersDA · October 22, 2010

W.W. Webster wrote: »

Is this any help?

ziggy53 wrote: »

The Canon 1D MKII does not have UDMA technology, so UDMA cards are pretty much wasted. (The 1D MKII is 2004 technology after all.) I would stick with 2G and 4G cards and the Sandisk cards do seem to run a little faster than Lexar of the same basic grade. The new Sandisk "Ultra" series, 30 MB/s, 200x are probably a good fit.

Likewise the SD cards beyond class 4 are probably not needed and you need the latest firmware for the 1D MKII/MKIIN to support SDHC.

Thanks for that information. I have a bunch of 4 GB cards from the old 20D days. I will probably stick with them for now.

W.W. Webster · October 22, 2010

RogersDA wrote: »

I have a bunch of 4 GB cards from the old 20D days. I will probably stick with them for now.

Unless you need high speed, high capacity cards (say, for action photography), your existing cards should be large enough and work fine!

ThatCanonGuy · October 23, 2010

I do action photography with a 1DII. Like Ziggy said, it doesn't have UDMA capability. However, I like to get faster cards like the Kingston 133x you mentioned. Two reasons: 1. faster download speed (if you've got a fast reader). 2. The 1DII doesn't have UDMA, but your next camera probably will.

I have that Kingston one, except mine's and 8GB. 32 is just too big and risky for me. I'd rather have 4 8GB cards. They hold somewhere around 600 raws on my 1DII. I'd highly recommend the Kingston 133, BTW. It's a great card, and about as fast as the Mark II can write to CFs.

But you know what the funny thing is? The 1DII can actually write to SDs faster than CFs.

But most CFs are faster than SDs.

So, yes, your 4GB cards are fine. The Kingstons are great, but I'd highly recommend getting a smaller one like an 8GB instead of that 32GB. The Transcend 8GB 600x is really cheap for 600x, though it's probably not really that fast. I have one and it's worked great so far.

I recommend that one too.

ziggy53 · October 24, 2010

ThatCanonGuy wrote: »

I do action photography with a 1DII. Like Ziggy said, it doesn't have UDMA capability. However, I like to get faster cards like the Kingston 133x you mentioned. Two reasons: 1. faster download speed (if you've got a fast reader). 2. The 1DII doesn't have UDMA, but your next camera probably will.

I have that Kingston one, except mine's and 8GB. 32 is just too big and risky for me. I'd rather have 4 8GB cards. They hold somewhere around 600 raws on my 1DII. I'd highly recommend the Kingston 133, BTW. It's a great card, and about as fast as the Mark II can write to CFs.

But you know what the funny thing is? The 1DII can actually write to SDs faster than CFs. But most CFs are faster than SDs.

So, yes, your 4GB cards are fine. The Kingstons are great, but I'd highly recommend getting a smaller one like an 8GB instead of that 32GB. The Transcend 8GB 600x is really cheap for 600x, though it's probably not really that fast. I have one and it's worked great so far. I recommend that one too.

In the link that "W.W. Webster" provided above you can see that Kingston cards in particular are a rather poor choice for Canon cameras. The measured speeds are much less that the manufacturer's ratings.

CF cards have their own on-board controller and the host camera circuitry and timing most definitely affect transfer speeds and are sensitive to the card controller. That's why the empirical ratings are so important, because there is a rather complicated interaction between cards and the devices they are used in.

Transcend 120x (or better) cards do seem pretty compatible but the Sandisk brand seem best overall with Canon dSLRs.

Art Scott · October 24, 2010

I would start here at NEW EGG,,,,,,,,I have 15 of
the 18.99 - 133x CF cards and 1 of the $60 600x cards and so far narry a prob.

RogersDA · October 24, 2010

Art Scott wrote: »

I would start here at NEW EGG,,,,,,,,I have 15 of
the 18.99 - 133x CF cards and 1 of the $60 600x cards and so far narry a prob.

That's pretty much what I have for the 50D & 5D MII (albeit not in the quantity that you do). I am thinking of going with a set of SD cards for the 1D, and getting some newer cards for the 5D.

RogersDA · October 24, 2010

Luckily the only card failure I ever had was with the microdrive cards. In retrospect I should have never even bought it.

Having said that I'm sure I'll get a card failure tomorrow.

CF Cards for a 1D MII

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