Best CF card speed for 7D?

Hi
I ordered my new 7D and 70-300L IS USM.
Being ex Sony I'm new to CF cards. I'm going to buy a SanDisk 16GB Extreme CF Compact Flash Cards 60MBS circa £44. But is 60 MBS fast enough [only concerned about inside the camera body]?

(I used to get the Sony SD Cards that were 94 MBS for the A77, mainly because my new i7 Vaio laptop has a grease lightning fast inbuilt card reader - but you guessed it it reads every SD or DUO memory sticks but not CF cards!)

Question is is it worth going for the 90 MBS Extreme Pro CF card at a cost of £69- i.e. will the camera clear the buffer faster or does 60 MBS exceed the internal camera transfer speed anyway? Does the faster speed help with video.

Any advice welcomed?
Sadly my Sndisk card reader, although reads the latest CF cards apparently doesn't work on Windows 7 (can say I understand why as it just a USB drive!). So either I drop onto an ols laptop and move with a USB stick or shell out another £27 for the new Sandisc USB 2/3 card reader [never ends does it]. Hence not so fussed about transfer spead to the laptop.
Sure if I like the 7D I'll get the new cardreader as the Vaio has USB 3 sockets [they say it's quicker].

I run my 7D quite happily on 133x 20MB cards, unless you are a trigger happy 8fps shooter I've not found the need for ultra high speed cards, they also cope with video as well.

Submariner wrote in post #14547247
Question is is it worth going for the 90 MBS Extreme Pro CF card at a cost of £69- i.e. will the camera clear the buffer faster or does 60 MBS exceed the internal camera transfer speed anyway? Does the faster speed help with video.

The 7D seems to hit the wall at around 55 MB/s for buffer clearing, so the 60 MB/s card should do. Video is extrarodinarily undemanding, 8 MB/s is enough according to the manual.

Start with SanDisk Extreme, they will do the trick @ 60MB/s

Then you can move up the SanDisk range to the top end version if you feel that is still not enough

Thanks guys for the advice I'll try starting with a 60MBS.
Should save almost 1/2 the cost.

http://www.robgalbrait​h.com …ort_col=raw&sor​t_dir=DESC

Ladera wrote in post #14550506
http://www.robgalbrait​h.com …ort_col=raw&sor​t_dir=DESC

Thanks interesting link.

Using a Sandisk Extreme 60MB/s 32GB. ZERO issues with windows 7. 64bit Very good value.

Considerations for paying extra for faster cards:

You do or do not shoot at high speed (wildlife and sports)...if yes, then yes
You do or do not want to max download speeds ( UDMA reader via USB 3 or FW800)...if yes, then yes
You think you might move to a camera body with faster high speed frame rate in the near future...if yes, then yes

hollis_f wrote in post #14548914
The 7D seems to hit the wall at around 55 MB/s for buffer clearing, so the 60 MB/s card should do. Video is extrarodinarily undemanding, 8 MB/s is enough according to the manual.

According to Rob Galbraith that "wall" of 55MB/s is only reached with faster cards of at least 90MB/s(600x). 60MB/s(400x)cards will only net you about 40MB/s. (still plenty fast though)

http://www.robgalbrait​h.com …ort_col=raw&sor​t_dir=DESC

7D test results

it is enough from my experience of using the same card. I sometimes shoot RAW burst and HD movie, and it never let me down..

I've been using 8GB and 16GB Sandisk Extreme (60MB/s) and Lexar Pro 400X, both UDMA, without any problems with 7D. If you shoot RAW, you'll get close to 300 images on 8GB, well over 500 and close to 600 on 16GB.

If you want faster downloads, does your laptop have an ExpressCard slot? There are CF readers available for those, that download up to 54MB/s. Much faster than USB2, though USB3 or FW800 connected readers might be equal or faster. Those ExpressCard readers are a bit fussy to fit the card into, but other than that work fine.

amfoto1 wrote in post #14554972
If you want faster downloads, does your laptop have an ExpressCard slot? There are CF readers available for those, that download up to 54MB/s. Much faster than USB2, though USB3 or FW800 connected readers might be equal or faster. Those ExpressCard readers are a bit fussy to fit the card into, but other than that work fine.

My Delkin PCI-E Expresscard 54 reader fits flush into the side of my laptop will download at approx 97MB/s.

They are discontinued now but are available for about $60 if you search them out: http://www.vistek.ca …ompact-flash-adapter.aspx

msowsun wrote in post #14555011
My Delkin PCI-E Expresscard 54 reader fits flush into the side of my laptop will download at approx 97MB/s.

They are discontinued now but are available for about $60

Or get the Lexar one - just as fast, half the price and easily available - LINK.

The Lexar expresscard reader is very good. When I got my current laptop this spring Iit has native USB 3 so I went with the Lexar USB 3 dual slot reader. I can move the same reader between my laptop and my desktop which also has native USB 3. Also the Lexar dual slot reader is UDMA 7 compliant to work with 1000x cards. Plan ahead for USB 3 and UDMA 7 even if you can't do them today.