Who makes the best Compact Flash Cards?

Who makes the best compact flash cards for 256mb and higher? I see a lot of posts about them, yet I am still unclear as to who makes the best, the best being the fastest without errors.

I am interested in getting another 256 and maybe a 512mb card.

Any responses will be helpful...

Thank you,

I think they r all about the same.
The big brands are :
1) SanDisk
2) Kingston
3) Viking
4) .....

I have 1 256M PQI, from samsung. $50 after rebate.
Works fine.

For me, I will take the cheapest.
Speed does not concern, as for now.

Hi niloligist ,

I can recommend the Archer 512MB CF memory with speed 4 MB/s . It isn't cheap (about 160 euro) but it's really FAST (24x). Standard CF memory is about 800Kb/s (so 0,8 MB/s) i believe. So if u buy memory look at the speed of the memory, the brand isn't a big issue.

I spent $149 at B&H for a 512mb 12x Lexar, wanting more memory vs. the supposedly faster 24x 256mb Lexar. It has worked without a hitch, is fast enough for me, no errors. Have never ran out of room on the card, but if you shoot at an event like a wedding, you have plenty room on this card. I have read a few posts that some Sandisk cards are s l o w, but these might be the regular speed cards.
Regards,
Kerry

http://www.dpreview.co​m/articles/mediacompar​e/
http://www.robgalbrait​h.com/bins/multi_page.​asp?cid=6007

i got a 512 mg 30x Transcend. paid 117.00 (123.00 total) for it from buy.com. it's listed as one of the fastest cards.

viking listed as good too and you can get a 25.00 rebate if you purchase it before april 30.

Viking 256::$37.94::after rebate::from www.ecost.com.
SimpleTech 512::$98.49::after rebate::from www.pcuniverse.com.

cedar

Thank you all, I have a point from which to start.

Big Smile,

I have the Transcend 30x 256 and 512 k. I bought them both 4 weeks ago when I got the G3. I've been taking an average of 40-50 shots a day, mostly in Raw, and then downloading to the PC at night for playing around with PhotoShop.

Both chips have worked perfectly so far. No problems at all. They get handled a lot because of the switching from camera to USB reader and back again, and it's all been bery smooth.

I got them from MyDigitalDiscount, and I think I paid about US$ 185 for both.

Good luck!

Markm

Wow 30x, thats' really fast i didn't know that. U got a idea how many MB/s that is ?

I will buy a extra 512 over a few months, shooting in cdr more (raw) u can take 130 pictures. It's not bad but sometimes u just wanna make more

I have a couple of SanDisk 128Mb cards that have worked flawlesly for a couple of years now. Recently, however, I replaced them with a 1Gb Lexar 16X card, which IMHO is very good and has been treating me very well.

IMHO 128Mb is not enough for anyone these days ... even less so if you can't download photos once the cards fills up. So my advice would be to go for size and quality rather then card speed, especially if you do not have a recent DSLR that can actually take advatage of high write speeds. Further more, USB (unless you have a FireWire/USB2 camera) is slow and you will not notice a difference in transfer from camera to computer between say 16X card and 30X card ...

I've heard people having troubles with Viking and SimpleTech cards, but manufacturers replaced faulty cards without a hassle. I had a PNY card that would freeze the camera when I was shooting too fast I've heard a lot of good things about SanDisk (bundled Canon CF cards are made by them), Lexar and Transcend. Saving money is a nice thing, but frustration later on is not worth it IMHO.

My 0.02€

I've seen the same as well. I went w/Sandisk for that reason (along w/the fact that I was told they make the Canon cards). Compatibility and security are my #1 criteria. Speed won't matter if the image isn't retrievable.

What I haven't heard anyone speak definitively to is if the G3 can make use of any of the speed of the faster cards. You say:

Sounds like you're saying that you need a higher-end camera than the G3 to take advantage of the higher speed cards. That was what I thought, but again, haven't seen anyone state it clearly as confirmed fact yet, nor what write speed the G3 maxes out at. Any more info/test results on this?

Dana

hmmm, not sure how many MB's?

I got a 256 MB SanDisk Ultra from Costco.com when I ordered my G3 a couple of weeks ago, and was pleasantly surprised to see that the 32 MB Canon card was the same brand but I doubt it's an Ultra (as stated above - look carefully at the card). Costco.com is not the cheapest, but they have an open-ended return policy. I've had no trouble with either card whatsoever. Note, however, I have not rapidly shot numerous frames. I believe Canon sells SimpleTech on their accessories website! I've heard Ridata is very fast, but that's all I've heard.

Lately I've been following DealNews:
http://dealnews.com
to find sales on CDs, CompactFlash, etc. Scan down to and through "storage" then at the bottom of that section click on "storage archive" to see previous posts. You can have them alert you when a new "x" is posted.

For my purposes (first digital camera - experimenting a lot) I would feel uncomfortable with anything less than 256 MB in the camera (I only use the 32 MB as backup now). I tend to shoot SuperLarge or SuperM1 almost exclusively, but haven't tried RAW yet.

***speed wrote:
Wow 30x, thats' really fast i didn't know that. U got a idea how many MB/s that is ?

***According to one of the above sites:
http://www.dpreview.co​m/articles/mediacompar​e/
(thanks getg3)
that works out to about 4.5 MB/sec.
Pretty fast, but is that write or read? And as has been raised above, can we use that extra speed?

Anybody know the max write speed of the G3? Also, they say there's an internal memory (buffer). How big is that?

Thanks for the forum. I'm a rookie, trying to learn fast.


-Barry in Tucson
It's a DRY heat. (Yeah, like a blast furnace.)

Look here for a other speed discussion. Not confirmed but i quess between 8x - 12x considering the answers from canon.