BIG or Faaast CF Card ?????

[tikkeltokkel]

I am about to order my 4th CF card. I recently shot a wedding and it came to my attention that i am one big CF short! I would like to shoot all RAW but find that i switch between large jpeg ( for the slightly less important pics and RAW for critical/crucial quality.
My question is whether i should get a Sandisk (original) 2GB card or the more expensive Ultra II 1GB card. Is there masses of difference between the two (speed wise)?
So is it going to be nice and big, slow love or quick, powerful, fast action !!!???

Mike (my other card are 3 X 512MB Ultra's)

[rockos]

why not a lexar 40x 6.0mbs

you can get it in 512, 1gb, 2gb, 4gb

i dont know of a much faster card

rockos

[tikkeltokkel]

Well you know whats its like when you latch onto a paticular make and you cant swop over to anything else. I have only had good sevice 20 000 images so far out of these cards.
I can get ultraII 1GB for $251 and "standard" Sandisk 2GB for $367

How much are the 2 and 4 GB Lexar's 4GB for $899 ?

Mike

[CoolToolGuy]

Check the link below for information on CF card speed:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-6453-6837
Much of this is camera-dependent, and you haven't told us what camera you are using.

Generally, if you go for the faster Lexar professional cards (40x) you are paying extra for the accelerator feature which Canon does not support. They may be fine cards, but that feature, and the extra that you pay for it is wasted.

I like the Sandisk cards, but there are a lot of opinions on which is best. You may want to check the CF database mentioned above.

Hope this helps.

[arthurb]

CoolToolGuy hit it on the head!

Canon does not support the features of the faster cards, so you are wasting your money to buy a card JUST because it is faster.

If you need a bigger card and one is slightly faster foe a tiny difference in price, then consider the speed, other wise just look at the capacity.

Since you shoot weddings you probably already understand that several smaller cards are better than a massive single card. For 2 reasons;
1. The cost of lets say 2 1gb cards, is less than a single 2gb card.
2. A card failure will only destroy part of your work.

[PeterS45]

I invested my € 210.-- in a 40 Gb X-Drive, so I wouldn't have to keep buying CF-Cards when I run out of memory. So every time my 2 cards are full (about 60 RAW pics each) I stick 'em in the X-Drive, copy them and start filling them again. It will keep me going for about 10,000 RAW's and that should be enough for a 3-week vacation.

[NILOLIGIST]

I love the scandisk ULTRA cards. I think they are fast enough for me but won't see the real value until I get the MKll. The features are lost on the 10D. So, unless you are upgrading to the MKll, get the Lexar or the fastest cards you can get. Don't buy under a gig if you want to shoot raw.

Finally, I only shoot raw and I don't buy anymore 512 cards, just don't want to change cards often.

Lazy NiL,

[Marchy]

This is interesting so the Ultra SanDisk is the best card due to the lacking function of the Canon 300D and 10D?

2 Questions

Where would the normal SanDisk be limited to shoot "fast photos" (Can some one give an example?

Is the Ultra SanDisk the best option for faster image capture of are there other cards?

Thanks for your thoughts!

[WestFalcon]

Think of it this way...the photographer is shooting your daughter's wedding. Which card would you want him/her to have in his camera? Myself, I want the best for my daughter so get the Ultra II and forget the standard card. Remember, weddings are very important so always buy the best equipment that you can afford. You have a lot of memories riding on that card.

[CoolToolGuy]

This is interesting so the Ultra SanDisk is the best card due to the lacking function of the Canon 300D and 10D?

2 Questions

Where would the normal SanDisk be limited to shoot "fast photos" (Can some one give an example?

Is the Ultra SanDisk the best option for faster image capture of are there other cards?

Thanks for your thoughts!

The faster cards allow you to shoot more pictures in a shorter time. The Canon DSLRs all have a buffer of internal memory that allow multiple pictures to be taken before the camera writes the images to the card. Basically, the better cameras have bigger buffers and allow more frames per second than the Digital Rebel. However, the speed of the card does not affect your ability to get a quality image - just, perhaps your ability to get many in rapid succession.

The 'fast card' issue is very complex. For the Drebel and the 10D the fast cards are useful, but the cameras cannot write the data as fast as the card can accept it, so the card is, in effect 'waiting' for the camera to write. Think of it like a funnel, and the neck of the bottle in the card is bigger than the tip of the funnel in the camera - the card could take it, but the camera can't feed it any faster. So the camera is the limiting factor in this case.

I like the Sandisk Ultra, but there are many good brands out there. In my mind, the most important thing to consider in CF card selection is to get a quality card that will not fail on you and 'lose' images or give error codes to the camera. A Sandisk Ultra (60x speed) will write faster than a standard Sandisk (4x I think) in a Canon DSLR, but not as fast as it might in another camera.

The high-speed Lexars include WA (write acceleration) technology built-in, and if the camera supports WA, -ZOOM- everything happens quickly. But Canon does not support WA, and the Lexars are more expensive because of WA, so you are spending money for a technology you cannot use. Some will say you are wasting money on ANY of the fast cards for a Canon, but they do perform better than the slow ones, just not up to their full capability.

You should check the CF database at Rob Galbraith's site. It goes into much deeper detail than I can right now.

[Marchy]

Very useful.........

So an Ultra seems to be the average one to buy quality and money taken into account.

So much to think about hey!

[tikkeltokkel]

Will the 1D II make any use of cards like Sandisk Ultra II ? I am cautious and try to "future-proff" purchasing as far as possible ... i have 3 ultras now and will probably buy the 1GB Ultra II for use in the Mark II in about 8-10 months time!?

Mike 10D and a bit of L

[CoolToolGuy]

Will the 1D II make any use of cards like Sandisk Ultra II ? I am cautious and try to "future-proff" purchasing as far as possible ... i have 3 ultras now and will probably buy the 1GB Ultra II for use in the Mark II in about 8-10 months time!?

Mike 10D and a bit of L

I obviously don't have a MKII, and I don't have one on order, so I won't have any personal experience with this any time soon. I would think that Rob Galbraith would be the first one to publish data on this, But there are signs in the pre-sales propaganda that point to it - something about dual channel recording that speeds up the transfers or something like that. I checked the Canon Web site, but I couldn't find it. You may want to check the intro hoopla that Dpreview had.

[samdring]

This subject really confuses me. I have read and re-read the Rob Galbraith results for the 10D and am still confused. I rarely use RAW and am, therefore, very happy with Crucial/Lexar Cards basic (1x i.e. 150 kbs?), however:

All my cards are capable of having a 20.1MB file written to them through explorer (copy) in around 10 seconds - 2 ish MB/sec. Sisoft Sandra reports them as ranging from 1585 to 1575 kBs random write.

Both these tests show speed greater than the fastest card (Sandisk Extreme @ 1415 per sec) under Rob Galbraiths tests with the 10D which, therefore, shows the 10D bottleneck.

But But But if my 1x cards have better performance than the 10D can manage, why are all cards not reporting the same write speed?? (i.e. they are ALL faster than the 10D)

Rob's site clearly admits that the shots they take (9 JPEG) are of differing sizes and my tests show significantly different speeds when using files of different sizes.

I have also read and re-read all results to ensure I am talking about bytes not bits!!

Am I being stupid and missing something simple?

[CoolToolGuy]

This subject really confuses me. I have read and re-read the Rob Galbraith results for the 10D and am still confused. I rarely use RAW and am, therefore, very happy with Crucial/Lexar Cards basic (1x i.e. 150 kbs?), however:

All my cards are capable of having a 20.1MB file written to them through explorer (copy) in around 10 seconds - 2 ish MB/sec. Sisoft Sandra reports them as ranging from 1585 to 1575 kBs random write.

Both these tests show speed greater than the fastest card (Sandisk Extreme @ 1415 per sec) under Rob Galbraiths tests with the 10D which, therefore, shows the 10D bottleneck.

But But But if my 1x cards have better performance than the 10D can manage, why are all cards not reporting the same write speed?? (i.e. they are ALL faster than the 10D)

Rob's site clearly admits that the shots they take (9 JPEG) are of differing sizes and my tests show significantly different speeds when using files of different sizes.

I have also read and re-read all results to ensure I am talking about bytes not bits!!

Am I being stupid and missing something simple?

Geez, this drags out the day job stuff for me, and I don't know this technology well enough.

There are a (at least) couple of things that can play into this - file blocking and transfer rate.



In most cases, the file (JPG or RAW) is created in 'blocks' - physical records that contain multiple bytes or logical records, and each physical record has some overhead related to it. If the device (camera) groups the records in small blocks the overhead is higher since there are more 'blocks'. If the file is grouped into larger blocks, there is less overhead, but it takes memory and processing power (CPU) to build the blocks, which may not be available in the camera. Windows, on the other hand may be able to build the bigger blocks.
Once the blocks are built, they need to be 'sent' to the card, and they move at a rate determined by the internal architecture of the device. Again, Windows may be faster than the internals of the camera.

As I said, these are only two factors that can result in different transfer times from the camera to the card.

Parenthetically, I have noticed that access from the CF card is slower than from the disk on my PC, regardless of how fast the card is. No extensive tests here, just that I have noticed if I open an image on the card it takes longer than if I open the same file from my 'C' drive. I don't do this a lot, but I have since decided that if I have a situation like that I will copy the files to disk and work from there, and copy or save to the card at the end.

There may be much better info on this out there somewhere, and I may find out that I am all wet. But in the world of data processing, I know that these factors can affect the transfer of data from one device (internal memory) to another (CF card)

[cgratti]

I am about to order my 4th CF card. I recently shot a wedding and it came to my attention that i am one big CF short! I would like to shoot all RAW but find that i switch between large jpeg ( for the slightly less important pics and RAW for critical/crucial quality.
My question is whether i should get a Sandisk (original) 2GB card or the more expensive Ultra II 1GB card. Is there masses of difference between the two (speed wise)?
So is it going to be nice and big, slow love or quick, powerful, fast action !!!???

Mike (my other card are 3 X 512MB Ultra's)

I guess it depends on your camera.. What are you shooting with? If its the Rebel or 10D go for size not speed, both those cameras dont utilize the speeds in the faster cards...

[roanjohn]

BOTH!! I want it big and fast :-)

I'm sure you do too!!!

Ro1

[kb244]

Well it depends what camera are you shooting with.

Check this chart, it shows the speed of write for each of the cards they tested.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6425

For example the Ultras and Extremes, are faster than the lexars they tested. But you'll noticed the fastest for say the Digital Rebel is 1.3MB/sec write with the Ultra II , but the new Nikon D70 for example ( I guess cuz its USB 2.0 capable they use the same bridge for the camera interface ) Can do upto 4MB/sec write to the card within the camera. Where as the 1D does like 3MB and so forth. So check that article to help base your purchase of which card.

[royalwolf10]

Skip the extra money you spend on monster cards. I have 3 ultra 256 CF cards,.... and a monster Image Tank (20G). You can't do better than that. I have never run more than 20 G of RAW files in the field. The tank loads via USB 2... Much faster than getting multiple Gs of images on to my Comp by CF.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15215&item=3809547 643&rd=1

[kb244]

100$ buy it now, dammit I wish i had some money right now, 20GB and USB 2 transfer speed, it bets the 99$ price of the media adapter for the ipod which is bloody slow. Shame thats 100$ without the harddrive.

[kb244]

Skip the extra money you spend on monster cards. I have 3 ultra 256 CF cards,.... and a monster Image Tank (20G). You can't do better than that. I have never run more than 20 G of RAW files in the field. The tank loads via USB 2... Much faster than getting multiple Gs of images on to my Comp by CF.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15215&item=3809547 643&rd=1

By the way how is the actual speed on that device. I've purchased a media adapter for the ipod, which is said to transfer "fast via firewire" but the actual transfer rate from card to ipod is no faster than 300K/sec which is quarter of the speed of USB 1.1, so I was curious after seeing the XDrive's website saying that it transfer fast via USB 2, but doesnt actually give any digits, how fast it actually is.

[royalwolf10]

Once you get the card process out of the way it is great. In the field dumping the cards are a convenience,... that's all. When you get home and have the need to dump 2 G after that trip to Europe, Africa, or the local park,.. it's nice to plug one device in and let it rip! The really nice part is buy the shell and find your own laptop drive. That is what I did rather than buy the one with the drive in it.

[kb244]

Once you get the card process out of the way it is great. In the field dumping the cards are a convenience,... that's all. When you get home and have the need to dump 2 G after that trip to Europe, Africa, or the local park,.. it's nice to plug one device in and let it rip! The really nice part is buy the shell and find your own laptop drive. That is what I did rather than buy the one with the drive in it.

You cant even give me a time estimation? For example, Transfering 256MB onto the ipod via the media adapter takes roughly 35 to 40 minutes. This is by far a convience, and the battery would likely die before then. A Convience would be something that can do the same size in at least 5 minutes or so. But I just want to get an idea how long it takes not if its a convenience or not.

[royalwolf10]

The transfer rate on USB 2.0 in raw data is at 480Mbps. The remainder of it depends on how fast your PC/Mac can process it. Due to running a 10,000 RPM SATA Drive with a 800mhz fsb MOBO and a G of RAM..... yours could be different.

[kb244]

The transfer rate on USB 2.0 in raw data is at 480Mbps. The remainder of it depends on how fast your PC/Mac can process it. Due to running a 10,000 RPM SATA Drive with a 800mhz fsb MOBO and a G of RAM..... yours could be different.

I am talking bout transfer rate from the CF card to the XDrive device.

[kb244]

I got an email back from the manufacture.


Dear Mr. Karl Blessing,

Thank you for your interest and inquiry of our X's Drive Pro.

About your question of speed, our VP 300 does transfer data faster than USB 1.1 but cannot reach high speed. The reason is all the data transfer still go through a IC bridge in terms of communication of USB, multi cards and HDD. As I record, it is about 4.3 MByte/sec.

In the next generation model, we will adopt DSP solution to reach high speed ( 10 MByte/sec) in increase the speed from cards to HDD.



King Regards,

Eric Tsai


That was the information I was looking for, 5MB/sec is far more acceptible, and was what i was hoping to see. Nice to know their future model will be capable of reaching upto speeds that the sandisk ultra cards will support.

[Olegis]

The transfer rate on USB 2.0 in raw data is at 480Mbps. The remainder of it depends on how fast your PC/Mac can process it. Due to running a 10,000 RPM SATA Drive with a 800mhz fsb MOBO and a G of RAM..... yours could be different.

I am talking bout transfer rate from the CF card to the XDrive device.

Hi,

I have the old X-Drive with 20GB HDD and it takes about 4.5 minutes to copy a full Transcend x30 256 CF card to the X-Drive. When I use my other 256 card (Dane-Elec x24), this period of time becomes slightly longer - about 5-5.5 minutes.
I find these numbers very reasonable and convenient while dumping the CFs to the X-Drive in the field, after all it's not that bad to take a 5 minutes break once in a while :-)

Hope it helped.

[royalwolf10]

Try it with a 40x card.

[kb244]

Try it with a 40x card.

The sandisk Ultra II card is a 60x card. As a result, it is capable of upto 10MB/sec , if the XDrive device currently is only cabable of 5MB/sec, a 40x card would not do much better than a 30 or 24, as the capability has already been reached ( theoretically ), course thats like with the digital cameras. The Digital Rebel can do 1.3MB/sec on a 60x card, but bout 700K/sec on a 30x.

[Olegis]

Try it with a 40x card.

Sorry, don't have one. But I think that you will gain another minute or so in case of x40 card. Right now the transfer times don't bother me 8)

[htbyron]

My question is whether i should get a Sandisk (original) 2GB card or the more expensive Ultra II 1GB card. Is there masses of difference between the two (speed wise)?


Based on Rob Galbraith's comparo, and Costco's good price ($109.99), I decided to order the 512MB Ultra II. I had been using a 256MB original Sandisk card in my G3 & recently moved to shooting RAW. The speed hit was noticeable, but I could live with it (most of the time). Now with the dReb, the RAW write times seem much slower (I guess it's the larger file size with RAW+JPG). So I'm hoping the Ultra II is noticeably faster. I'll report next week sometime.

Tom

[kb244]

Just keep in mind, even with one of the fastest cards out there, the DReb write speed will not exceed about 1.4MB/sec. As a result it would take quite a while for your camera to save a burst of raws, or about 5 seconds to save a single raw shot. I ended up downloading that one firmware hack, setting Raw+Small, then reverting it back to the original firmware which kept the +Small setting, and that reduced my raws down to about 3-4MB , which helped a bit too for raw shooting. The slowest card I noticed in the chart with the Dreb was like 700K , so you would be least getting twice the speed, even tho for raw i dont think it would be that great of an improvement. But i'd pretty much would still prefer the SD Ultra II.

[royalwolf10]

You are correct. I do have a 60x. sorry for the bad info.

What is the opinion on of brand batteries and chargers. I usually like to stick with all the same name, but have found excellent prices on other brands.

[htbyron]

Just keep in mind, even with one of the fastest cards out there, the DReb write speed will not exceed about 1.4MB/sec. As a result it would take quite a while for your camera to save a burst of raws, or about 5 seconds to save a single raw shot. I ended up downloading that one firmware hack, setting Raw+Small, then reverting it back to the original firmware which kept the +Small setting, and that reduced my raws down to about 3-4MB , which helped a bit too for raw shooting. The slowest card I noticed in the chart with the Dreb was like 700K , so you would be least getting twice the speed, even tho for raw i dont think it would be that great of an improvement. But i'd pretty much would still prefer the SD Ultra II.

That was my assessment too. I wasn't willing to pay a big premium, but I thought the Costco deal made it a worthwhile try, since RG says it impoves speed by 2x with raw files. I haven't yet decided whether to try the hack, but I'm tempted, in part to increase CF card capacity in RAW. Do you find an improvement in shot-to-shot speed in RAW? (I think that's what your message states.)

Tom

[kb244]

I found a little bit of improvment from shot to shot ( like 1fps or so ), but if I did burst mode ( 3fps ), would take 3 quickly then you have to wait almost 30 seconds, essentially when you shoot a bunch pictures in a short period of time the wait seems long no matter if your RAW is saved with small or large JPG. But as I was saying earlier, shot to shot, betweeen 1 to 3 seconds, I can still continue to shoot normally, where as a slower card there was a noticible pause between a couple shots.