Best make of CF Card for 300D?

[EOSAddict]

I have just acquired a very lovely Epson P2000 for photo storage for my forthcoming holiday but am still relying on a single Sandisk Ultra II 512 CF card and am looking for another so I can hot swap thru the P2000.

Having seen some dodgy comments about the Lexar 80x cards I am inclined towards a 1GB Ultra II or Extreme III but have also recently seen a website with some realworld testing of data rates with a variety of cards that showed it makes little difference for the 300D between most of the makes and speeds of cards. Indeed Kingston Pro came out very well and with mymemory doing 2GB Kingston Pro cards for £99 I am very tempted...

Also quite like the Integral pro cards warehouseexpress sell.

Anyone had any good/bad experiences to share with Kingston/Integral CF Cards??

[foxbat]

Kingston's are fine. I'm wary of cards that advertise "ultra" or "extreme" memory performance as they may be pushing the manufacturer's memory response times to the limit. It's easy to check and do the maths with PC DIMMs but impossible to see the chips inside a CF card...

[condyk]

Having seen some dodgy comments about the Lexar 80x cards I am inclined towards a 1GB Ultra II or Extreme III but have also recently seen a website with some realworld testing of data rates with a variety of cards that showed it makes little difference for the 300D between most of the makes and speeds of cards. Indeed Kingston Pro came out very well and with mymemory doing 2GB Kingston Pro cards for £99 I am very tempted...


I have just bought three 1GB Lexar 80x cards for a planned trip later in the year and so I am obviously worried about your comment. What is the issue with these cards?


BTW I also have a Kingston 1GB Pro card and it seems to work perfectly fine.

[COKE CAN]

I wish I could trust a MicroDrive. Man those things have great prices.

I use SanDisk, I have no problems as of yet, nor have I ever. I've read great reviews, and we sold them in my store so when I bought my DRebel on my Circuit City credit card it was no intrest as well. :lol: I love no interest package deals!

I'm looking at wrapping up all of my accessories here soon with a purchase of a Canon back pack and a 1GB card. I run Kingston memory in my desktop computer at home, so it is up in the air.

Any good comparisons online I could check out?

[tim]

I use Sandisk Ultra II and i've never had a problem. You could get away with a slower, cheaper Sandisk card for the 300D, but if you think you'll upgrade cameras any time in the future, get the Ultra IIs.

[Skip Souza]

Check out this Compact Flash performance database (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007), it should answer many of your questions.

I personally use SanDisk Ultra II because I believe it to be the most cost effective.
www.NewEgg.com (http://www.NewEgg.com) , and Costco have had the best prices for me but it pays to check the sales.

[EOSAddict]

I have just bought three 1GB Lexar 80x cards for a planned trip later in the year and so I am obviously worried about your comment. What is the issue with these cards?


BTW I also have a Kingston 1GB Pro card and it seems to work perfectly fine.

It may be nothing but I was scanning the forum the other night and found quite a few comments about Lexar 80x cards corrupting data... however, have no personal experience either way....

[Carzee]

Foxbat - just got a Kingston from FL via eBay:

76dollars (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7511774701)

http://i19.ebayimg.com/03/i/03/f4/90/e8_1_b.JPG

It uses the "ELITE" tag/ hyperbole. Same price postage to US or International too. I'll post here when it arrives (positive thinking) next Wednesday...

[SkipD]

I have just bought three 1GB Lexar 80x cards for a planned trip later in the year and so I am obviously worried about your comment. What is the issue with these cards?I've been using the 2GB version of the Lexar 80X and have had absolutely no problems. I'm going to get another before too long.

While I realize that the camera (20D) can't take advantage of the write acceleration capability, I am astounded at how fast I can transfer the files off the card into my computer using a Lexar "USB 2.0 Multi-Card Reader".

[condyk]

Thanks SkipD, that's really useful to know.

These cards aren't cheap, as you know, and so the thought that I may encounter problems has been a concern. It does seem tho' that, on reflection, I could have got away with getting cheaper CF cards for my 300D and more of them given my 300D can't really make use of the greatly enhanced speed of these cards :o

I may just sell a couple of the 1GB's and get more individual lower speed types, i.e. 8 x cheap 500Mb ones rather than 2 of the ultra fast 1GB's, as I am concerned about 'redundancy' when out in the wilds somewhere.

[tim]

For the 300D performance doesn't matter much as the camera can't take advantage of it. Get a good brand for reliability, and don't worry about the rest. Like I said earlier, if you plan to upgrade camera bodies later, get a card in the top 10% of the performance chart, but otherwise you're wasting money for performance you won't notice.

[condyk]

Check out this Compact Flash performance database (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007), it should answer many of your questions.

Ok Skip, that's a valuable reference (amazingly comprehensive). For the 300D, it says the following:

Several EOS Digital Rebel/300D design decisions mean that this camera will benefit from the fastest possible CompactFlash card:

The EOS Digital Rebel/300D's image review features don't fully come to life until the storage buffer is completely emptied to the card. RAW format afficionados will find the wait especially long.

When the camera's processing and storage memory buffers are completely full, you'll need to wait for the camera to finish writing at least one photo to the card before another photo can be shot.

The camera writes slowly, regardless of card.

Also, seems that the Lexar 80x is a very, very fast card too but, as Tim suggests, maybe a bit of overkill for the 300D.

(c) acknowledged

[DocFrankenstein]

I've also seen a few problems with recent lexars here and there, but no personal experiences. That's why I favoured sandisk.

I'm off to pick it up. :)

But then I have a 256 12x lexar which gave me no problems whatsoever.

Cheers

[DocFrankenstein]

Ok, as someone who has just upgraded from a 12x to sandisk ultra II

I can say that the ultra II is worth every penny. :cool:

JPEG large, 4 shots clear in less than 3 seconds. WOOHOO!

If you can afford it, the extra for a fast card is definitely worth it.

[Screamer]

I have a second generation 1GB Lexar 80x, a 1GB SanDisk Ultra II, a 512 MB SanDisk Ultra II, and I just picked up a 1GB Sandisk Extreme III.

Between the Lexar 80x and the Sandisk, I've had a total of three corrupted shots on the Lexar, none on the SanDisk Ultra II cards. My local shop actually recommends the SanDisk, even though the Lexar is generally more expensive, part to part, to SanDisk...and they carry both.

Also, there seems to be a shortage of 1GB Extreme III cards. Rumor has it that Apple is buying them up for their iPod Shuffle. Get them when you can. :)

[crc_408]

Also use SanDisk Ultra II 1GB cards. Haven't had any problems.
Just ordered another four.

[the.digital.guy]

Use Sandisk Ulta II 1GB/have 4 of them;and Sandisk Ultra II 2GB.
Alaways have used Sandisk without any promblems.
My 3 IBM MicroDrives are another story/they don't like to be dropped.I do not use them at all now.