best bang for the buck compact flash card for still photography only with canon 7d

+1 for 8 gig cards here. I have been buying THESE recently, they are $25 when buying two or more fyi...

I prefer one big card rather than lots of little ones. With a single card the only way I can lose it is if I lose the camera. With lots of small cards I have to hope they won't slip out of the pocket/bag/wherever I put them.

I've been using CF cards for over a dozen years I've never had one fail in-camera. If that were to happen I understand there is software that can recover everything in the majority of cases. In the days when I couldn't afford big cards I did manage to lose one (I put it somewhere 'safe' in the heat of the moment). The software wasn't much use for recovering those images.

II use one big card in the camera until it is downloaded every night, put back in the camera, and formatted in the camera.

I have had only one CF card to fail. I purchased a stack of Duracell 32GB 600x cards. One was bad out of the package. The rest tested at 400x speeds, not 600x speeds. I sent them all back and got a Lexar 32GB 600x. It tested at 600x speeds.

Lexar cards plus a Lexar USB 3 reader will give you fast writes by the camera and fast downloaded via a computer.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #12931130
I have one 16Gb card that allows me to balance the capacity of my MkIV with that of an 8Gb in my MkIII for average walking around shooting where I don't anticipate needing to change cards. I also like the 16Gb for video with my MkIV (but I'm not doing real video production.)

Beyond the one 16Gb, I use 8Gb exclusively. I get 345 frames on my MkIV and around 540 on my MkIII.

I find 8Gb cards to be plenty big for still photography.

Ditto . . .

Anke wrote in post #12931146
Same here, I tend to have two 8GBs in my camera and regularly forget to put one back in so always have an 8GB on the go

I tend to buy the smaller cards too as to force myself to get the shots out of the camera and onto another device every so often. If that makes sense.

Not only that, if you don't fill the card every time you're out, the bigger cards take longer to register with my download software (Downloader Pro) as it verifies what's already been downloaded.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #12931318
Same here...

I almost treat CF cards as if they are just larger rolls of film. I much prefer to only download an 8Gb card than wade through a 64Gb card to find 4Gb of good shots.

Truth!

There are exactly two kinds of digital media:
1) Those that have failed
2) Those that will fail

i am using the transcend 32gig 400x's (2 ) without any problems in my 7D. They work great.