What Memory Card for 5D2.

[peter.pan]

Hey guys, I am about to get the 5d mark II, and was wondering what CF card I should get with it. Usually I shoot single shots (often in RAW), also with 5D2 the HD video has to be taken in consideration. I know the memory I need is at least 16GB. What card would you recommend for the recording speed and capacity?

[That_Fox]

I would recommend the Sandisk Extreme (60MB/sec), it is very speedy and fast enough for my 7D. Although I'm not a bit video shooter, I've shot 5 minutes of 1080P video to the card and never found it lagging behind, it worked great. I've noticed an immediate speed difference from my previous Sandisk Extreme III's.

[Jon]

Video, even at 1080p, is actually less demanding than still (surprising, but do the numbers - 1920x1080x30 fps is about 3 fps at 20 MP). I use 8 GB cards for a couple of hundred shots per card - that's about a manageable number for indexing in one swoop, and SanDisk Extreme III, Extreme IV or Ultra (the new fast ones) in my 5D2 and 7D.

[LarkM]

Yep, even at the higher bitrate of 1080p video, you're only pushing ~8MB/s to the card vs. 20-23MB *per picture* in RAW. If you're using burst mode, the card will easily be saturated until the camera can flush its buffers.

*These numbers are based on my 7D.

[SuzyView]

I just bought an 8 GB Ultra card from Costco for $34.00 and it comes with 100 free prints in the lab. I love those coupons. The card costs $20.

[bohdank]

Ya, even the slowest card will work admirably. The downside is slow transfer to your computer in a card reader.

[themadman]

I just bought an 8 GB Ultra card from Costco for $34.00 and it comes with 100 free prints in the lab. I love those coupons. The card costs $20.

I got one of those today too... but how do I get my free prints?

[hollis_f]

Ya, even the slowest card will work admirably. The downside is slow transfer to your computer in a card reader.

But, as most people use USB2 readers, the card will only be the bottleneck if it's slower than around 30 - 40 MB/s. Anything faster than that and USB can't keep up.

[SuzyView]

I got one of those today too... but how do I get my free prints?

Please tell me you didn't throw out the little cardboard it came in! If you cut the side open, separate the cardboard from the plastic, it's behind. Yes, it's hiding, so you have to be careful!

[peter.pan]

Thanks everyone. I think I am gonna go for the 16GB Extreme 60mb/s. It sounds really good, and the price isn't that huge.

[SuzyView]

Peter, when you download the card data to your computer, make sure you're using a card reader and then have plenty of RAM to accept it. If you have it downloaded to an organizer like in PS, make sure it can receive 16 GB's worth of data. That's why I only use 2-8 GB cards. Sometimes it crashes my old computers. I bought a new computer just for this problem.

[hollis_f]

Peter, when you download the card data to your computer, make sure you're using a card reader and then have plenty of RAM to accept it. If you have it downloaded to an organizer like in PS, make sure it can receive 16 GB's worth of data.

Eh? I've never had a problem downloading big cards, even with my puny little netbook, and I can't see how it could cause a problem. At least not with a properly functioning computer. When I came back from Africa I downloaded around 45GB straight from my Hyperspace (which would look like a big, fast, card to the PC) to Lightroom on my old laptop (2GB RAM, 1.x GHz Processor) - no problems.

[SuzyView]

Not to get too involved, direct copying onto a hard drive is fine, just doesn't work with my PSE organizer. New computers, it's fine. LR is fine. And I did get a little netbook just last month and it's great. Too bad they don't have CF card readers, though.