Sandisk Extreme III vs Ultra II

Something that hasn't been brought up yet, it's not all about speed either. The Extreme cards are built to withstand more extreme temperatures, for example the CF Extreme can operate between -25°C to 85°C.

Can't find any numbers on the Ultra cards, but at least the Extreme series are marketed as better in this aspect. And if I recall correctly I did see some numbers a few years ago when I decided which series I should get, and the temperature difference was enough to decide for me.

My Ultra II 4GB just arrived, huge improvement from the ****ty Lexar 2GB I had from my ****ty P&S. I'll probably order an Extreme III 4GB soon to compare, and to have the extra storage of course.

fedaykin wrote in post #10136181
My Ultra II 4GB just arrived, huge improvement from the ****ty Lexar 2GB I had from my ****ty P&S. I'll probably order an Extreme III 4GB soon to compare, and to have the extra storage of course.

Could you CrystalDiskMark the Sandisk Ultra II by any chance? I was thinking of getting a 8GB Ultra II 15MB/s edition as its the same price as a 4GB Extreme III.

I've got the 4GB Extreme III 20MB/s Edition and it benches at 23MB/s write with a USB card reader.

When used in the camera, It writes five 13.7MB RAWs at about 11MB/s.

LaaG wrote in post #10143566
Could you CrystalDiskMark the Sandisk Ultra II by any chance? I was thinking of getting a 8GB Ultra II 15MB/s edition as its the same price as a 4GB Extreme III.

I've got the 4GB Extreme III 20MB/s Edition and it benches at 23MB/s write with a USB card reader.

When used in the camera, It writes five 13.7MB RAWs at about 11MB/s.

sorry I would but I can't, running Ubuntu at the moment on my laptop.

It all comes down to how you are shooting. RAW images on a 5D mk II are 25MB each (according to the user manual). In burst mode you can do 3.9 shots per second. So. That works out to 100MB of data per second. If you have a really fast card, the camera can dump that data quicker and get you back to shooting quicker. Now, I have no idea at what data rate the camera writes to the card. Eventually that becomes the bottle neck.

Either way, I stick with reputable name brand cards. I do not want to loose data because of a faulty card. Do a google search and you will come across enough stories of that nature to stay away from certain brands. If you never had a problem with the more cost effective cards then that is great.

Cheers!