7D -- how fast should memory card be?

What are you 7D shooters using for CF cards? I have seen a recommended 8MB/sec for video shooting from the manual.

I was looking at an 8GB CF 233x Lexar Pro from Adorama for about $50. Costco has a slower SanDisk for $26 right now, but I think it is only the Ultra II which is supposed to be 15MB/sec but looks to be closer to 10MB/sec.

I use a 300x card from Transcend, but check out this video from Lexar on their new 600x. It'll give you an idea about the speed difference.

http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=hpNw5yVPhLg

I just ordered the 7D and added a 32GB Photofast 533x CF card. It may be a little overkill but I don't like running out of space. It got great reviews and can be purchased on ebay for $250. I'll let you know how it works in a few days when I get it.

Don't forget that the new Ultra IIs are 30 mb/s. At any rate, this is the minimum speed I would go with.

Bryan

I guess a CF card with a faster write speed will empty the buffer faster once it is full, allowing you to continue shooting stills at a reasonable fps.

http://www.newegg.com …aspx?Item=N82E1​6820208528

$64 for 16GB with a claimed 90MB/s read and 60MB/s write

it's what I'm using right now. faster cheaper and more space then the sandisk units it seems so figured might as well buy it.

as far as how fast a memory card should be really depends on what you do and how fast/how often you fill up that buffer.

As has already been mentioned, it is down to how often or not you fill the buffer up - if you rarely or never fill the buffer then a fast card is a waste of money IMO. The new Sandisk Ultra's at 30MB/s are very competitively priced and are well up to the job, I use a few for bird photography where I always shoot in high burst mode (8 fps) and they performs great. As for upload speed to the PC, you are governed more by the interface than the card.

I have a 15 gig Scandisk extreme, its 60 mp/s and it works great.
About 100$ through amazon

If you are using 1080p video, then the UDMA card is recommended, otherwise, for just images, I am using Kingston elite pro CF's and I can comfortable shoot 7-8 RAWs @ 8fps before it slows down...

think video only uses what 5-8Mb/s. most any card should be able to do that anymore unless it is way old.

rx7speed wrote in post #9798680
think video only uses what 5-8Mb/s. most any card should be able to do that anymore unless it is way old.

Yep, I agree with this. According to the 7D manual you only need 8Mb/s for HD video so even the slowest of today's cards should be OK.

Roy C wrote in post #9798970
Yep, I agree with this. According to the 7D manual you only need 8Mb/s for HD video so even the slowest of today's cards should be OK.

djvkool wrote in post #9798626
If you are using 1080p video, then the UDMA card is recommended

The manual recommends a UDMA card only for shooting stills while also shooting video (P. 154). Otherwise what Roy says is correct.

I dont know the exact speed but fast enough to wheres theres no lag between pictures.

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

I use a sandisk extreme 8 gig UDMA (not pro) which has a claimed speed of 60 mb/s. I filled it yesterday doing a combination of paintball photography and video, so I switched to a borrowed kingston 16 gig 133x. The slow down was very noticeable. Images took longer to load when previewing and video mode also didn't switch over as quickly after shooting a burst of images due to buffer speeds.

If you're going to buy a high end camera, you might as well buy a card that won't hinder it imo

15 gb Scandisk extreme seems to be working well so far for me