Are the CF compact flash to SD card adapters any good?

Update: 09/17/2020 Best buy had 64 GB CF cards for $39.99 and I got one.
I think I have seen CF adapters somewhere and didn't know if they improve or reduce the camera performance and image quality. Are CF compact flash to SD card adapters any good? I'm going to cough up the money for genuine 64GB or 128 GB Compact flash card after reading about someone's internal CF pins being bent.

vision35 wrote in post #19121245
I think I have seen CF adapters somewhere and didn't know if they improve or reduce the camera performance and image quality. Are CF compact flash to SD card adapters any good?

You might have seen the reverse, an SD card used in a CF adapter. One at https://www.amazon.com …ter-WiFi-SD/dp/B00XO2KSEO. People reported problems with microSD in an SD adapter. Performance read/write speeds could suffer. CF cards have a built in controller, hence the greater price of an CF card as compared to an SD card.

In general, using SD in a CF adapter is taking serial data stream and converting it to a 8-bit parallel data stream. Data transfer is no better than SD data transfers, and I cannot say if there is any significant overhead in the data stream conversion...that is, does the adapter slow down the SD in its data transfer speeds.

SD is not as fast as the same year CF card. That has been proven over and over. CF has always stayed faster than SD, in spite of any technology advances in SD speed.
Camera companies have been sold a real bill of goods by the memory manufacturers, in getting them to convert from CF to SD card support. It was cheaper for the memory manufacturere, but it was never faster for devices using SD. Now, the fastest of the new cameras, the R5, uses a new generation of CF to store photos and videos faster so the buffers do not fill up as rapidly.

I've used SD-to-CF adapters with SD, Mini-SD and Micro-SD cards, and all have worked as expected.
I did this for a while due to the fact that I already had a collection of the Mini/Micro/SD cards
and this saved me from purchasing new cards at a time I could ill-afford the expense.

I can't speak of the speediness of such a setup, as I've never had a need for fast cards.
I can wait for a transfer to PC just fine, and my shooting interests don't require it.
They're probably not an especially fast option, though.

Wilt wrote in post #19121263
In general, using SD in a CF adapter is taking serial data stream and converting it to a 8-bit parallel data stream. Data transfer is no better than SD data transfers, and I cannot say if there is any significant overhead in the data stream conversion...that is, does the adapter slow down the SD in its data transfer speeds.

SD is not as fast as the same year CF card. That has been proven over and over. CF has always stayed faster than SD, in spite of any technology advances in SD speed.
Camera companies have been sold a real bill of goods by the memory manufacturers, in getting them to convert from CF to SD card support. It was cheaper for the memory manufacturere, but it was never faster for devices using SD. Now, the fastest of the new cameras, the R5, uses a new generation of CF to store photos and videos faster so the buffers do not fill up as rapidly.

Well, I wouldn't say camera companies were duped merely on the basis of data speeds. SD cards do represent a much more compact package with a much simpler (easier to manufacture) physical interface. They're probably much cheaper to implement in a camera body than CF cards.

RDKirk wrote in post #19121329
Well, I wouldn't say camera companies were duped merely on the basis of data speeds. SD cards do represent a much more compact package with a much simpler (easier to manufacture) physical interface. They're probably much cheaper to implement in a camera body than CF cards.

No argument from me about the points you raised about advantages.

My point was merely that camera companies were also told the SD would be 'just as fast or faster'. And speed equal never materialized, in exchange for size and the economy of one data channel..the bill of goods.
Back then, video was not in the dSLR, so maybe the story they were told was relevant, but the buffers were already filling even at relatively modest fps. Going from 8-bit to 1-bit data stream was starting off inherently with a hurdle for SD to overcome., but to this day CF incarnations have been faster.

Even back in 2013, Wikipedia's description about the discussion of SD UHS-II summarized,

"Secure Digital cards are used in many consumer electronic devices, and have become a widespread means of storing several gigabytes of data in a small size....They may also not present the best choice for applications where higher storage capacities or speeds are a requirement as provided by other flash card standards such as CompactFlash."

vision35 wrote in post #19121245
I think I have seen CF adapters somewhere and didn't know if they improve or reduce the camera performance and image quality. Are CF compact flash to SD card adapters any good? I'm going to cough up the money for genuine 64GB or 128 GB Compact flash card after reading about someone's internal CF pins being bent.

The adapters generally work well, and if you are an enthusiast they can be a cheap way to use SD cards you may already own in your camera.

But the read and write speeds will be only what the SD card is capable of, which maybe be an issue if your shooting video or high speed bursts and need the buffer to empty quickly.

They are a "having some storage is better than no storage" type of solution.


For professional use I wouldn't recommend them, they are not 100% reliable and add a potential failure point.

Wilt wrote in post #19121263
In general, using SD in a CF adapter is taking serial data stream and converting it to a 8-bit parallel data stream.......

This is pretty close to being nonsense technobabble. In the context of a camera using an adapter the data transfer is from the camera to the CF card which is a parallel connection, then to the SD card which is a serial connection.
Serial can generally support higher data transfer rates, hence it's use in USB, SATA, Thunderbolt, CFast etc, as opposed to Parallel connectors that are now or becoming redundant like IEEE 1284 and PATA (i.e Compact Flash).


For a good quality UHS-III SD card the limiting factor is generally the camera and not the card, and even a cheap UHS-II SDXC, or SDHC card is able to record 4K 60 video with no problem.
Currently the best SD cards top out with a write speeds in excess of 250mb/s, with some claiming to get close to 300mb/s which is faster than the best compact flash cards.
The best UDMA Compact Flash cards can write at up to 150mb/s, with claims of 160mb/s.

And of course all this is only really useful if you have a camera that use's Compact Flash cards, which is now an out dated technology. New cameras now use SD or Cfast, or both.

Taking a single bit wide serial data stream (SD) and converting it into an 8-bit wide parallel data stream (CF) is no 'technobabble'...it is the reality of putting an SD card into an adapter than fits a CF slot.

Folks use to blame Canon I/O for limitations of SD card data flow. Yet Nikon camera testing of CF vs SD never showed a major difference (narrowing the performance gaP) between SD data rates and CF data rates in in-camera testing done in the past.

The OP sepcifically asked about use of SD memory in a CF adapter, although he did not disclose a specific reasone to do so in the opening post. Another user speculated and someone might have a CF compatible camera, and wished to use SD memory cards in it because CF membery was more difficult to find.

I located a test of SD UHS-II in a Sony, it achieved tested 273 MBs write speeds, while labeled to 300 Mbps
https://www.cameramemo​ryspeed.com …ii-32gb-sdhc-memory-card/


And CF itself has not progressed to keep up , with up to 155 MB/s tested speeds as its peak. The CF Fast was its successor, and CF Fast have the fastest read speeds of 560 MB/s, seen in products like Delkin Devices and Hoodman. And then there is CF Express, will allow CFexpress cards with a theoretical maximum read speed of 1750 MB/s.

But none of the above really matters with ordinary SD in CF adapters which is what OP is all about. And any debate is further rendered pointless by the fact that our CAMERA determines the kind of memory you buy and use, and not memory science.

Wilt wrote in post #19123197
And CF itself has not progressed to keep up , with up to 155 MB/s tested speeds as its peak. The CF Fast was its successor, and CF Fast have the fastest read speeds of 560 MB/s, seen in products like Delkin Devices and Hoodman. And then there is CF Express, will allow CFexpress cards with a theoretical maximum read speed of 1750 MB/s.

But none of the above really matters with ordinary SD in CF adapters which is what OP is all about. And any debate is further rendered pointless by the fact that our CAMERA determines the kind of memory you buy and use, and not memory science.

Which are now all serial formats. This also changes the claim that parallel CF has been faster with comparative generation of SD cards (as parallel CF is no longer used with the most modern cameras). A serial bus can still be faster than a given parallel one because it can have faster cycles. Seems we don't know enough about the OP: such as what camera they have. Is it an older one that only accepts CF? There can be issues finding a CF card that's compatible (if not using an older card). The newest cameras that still have CF also tend to accept SD USH II (making both formats comparable in speed). With the nature of SD to CF adapters, I don't find quick info in how the controller might work for converting the interface. The main argument I see against the adapters are reliability. When it comes to using CF, I've used it for years and only bent a pin with a cheap card reader. Especially the slots on cameras seem well designed enough to only allow one direction.

OK, point made that serial is finally faster than the old parallel CF, and current editions (like CF Express) are serial data. Unfortunately none of this debate about SD UHS-II vs CF Express technology applies to what the OP inquired about. Getting back to OP point of interest...

I submit that what applies to OP inquiry SD card speed in CF adapter, neverless is valid in consideration.

I suppose someone needs to conduct speed measurements of the combination to see what data write and data read can be achieved with the combination of interest to the OP, using fastest SD (compatible with SD-to-CF adapter) vs. fastest CF available at the time.

OK, we will see if the OP meets your expectations for getting combinations of cards and adapters for whatever camera they have. Me thinks that given they haven't piped up, they're still just wanting to know if a given SD to CF adapter is reliable.

Moppie wrote in post #19122899
For professional use I wouldn't recommend them, they are not 100% reliable and add a potential failure point.

in terms of connections, they add two potential failure points!