What size compact flash card for 10mp camera?

Canon EF 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6 IS USM

06/15/2008 10:18:13 PM · #1

My old 2GB & 1GB Ultra II cards fill up pretty quick when shooting RAW w/ the new 40D. I'm currently looking at the following cards. I know the 40D doesn't support UDMA, so the extra speed of the Extreme IV may not be worth the cost. Any suggestions??

Sandisk Extreme III 4GB - 2 cards for $59 (after rebate)
or
Sandisk Extreme III 8GB - 1 card for $60(after rebate)
or
Sandisk Extreme IV 4GB - 1 card for $60 (after rebate)

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

06/15/2008 10:20:49 PM · #2

2- 4GB cards oughtta' do it.

idnic

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

06/15/2008 10:20:57 PM · #3

Personally, I like 4gb cards. They'll hold an entire model / senior / family session.... and 2 or 3 will hold a wedding. I'm don't have enough faith in the larger cards yet. Afraid if an 8gb card failed I would lose an entire day. (I've only had one card fail so far and it was a 2gb that I used to death on a daily basis for about 2 years. )

rjkstesch

Nikon D700

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

06/15/2008 10:21:42 PM · #4

I prefer the 4GB with my 10 mp. Not too big that I risk losing it all, but big enough to capture quite a bit before needing a change.

idnic

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

06/15/2008 10:23:22 PM · #5

BTW - You should get about 400 RAW images on a 4gb.

lglawrence

Canon EF 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6 IS USM

06/15/2008 10:39:31 PM · #6

Personally, I don't use anything but 2GB for a 10MP camera. If my card corupted after a shoot, I would still have most of
my shoot to salvage from the other cards. 4GB might be ok, but I don't mind having 8 CF 2GB Cards.
Anyway, The Extreme III 4GB are worth it. I would stay away from 8GB for now IMOP.

Zeus

Nikon D810

Nikon AF Zoom-Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED VR

06/15/2008 11:22:09 PM · #7

How often does a memory card fail?

RayEthier

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM

06/15/2008 11:28:30 PM · #8

Originally posted by lglawrence:

I would stay away from 8GB for now IMOP.

Don't know why you would say that. I have never heard of any problems with them, and I have 2 of them that I have been using since they came out and no problems so far.

Ray

SDW

Tamron AF 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 XR Di LD Aspherical IF for Canon

06/16/2008 12:32:14 AM · #9

I agree, go with the 2) 4GB cards. If one fails you still have a second card or if one becomes corrupt will only loose the images on that card and not the second.

Like I always say, "I would rather have 5-$20 bills instead of 1-$100 bill; if I loose a bill I still have $80 left".

Dr.Confuser

Nikon D800

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

06/16/2008 12:33:40 AM · #10

Originally posted by RayEthier:

Originally posted by lglawrence:
I would stay away from 8GB for now IMOP.

Don't know why you would say that. I have never heard of any problems with them, and I have 2 of them that I have been using since they came out and no problems so far.

Ray

I've been using 8 Gig San disk cards for awhile now, and had no problems.

Delta_6

Canon EOS-7D

Olympus 7-14mm f/4.0 Zuiko Digital Zoom

06/16/2008 07:30:26 AM · #11

I have three 2 GB cards that I use quite happily with my 40D.

one2one

Olympus E-5

06/16/2008 07:50:47 AM · #12

Originally posted by idnic:

BTW - You should get about 400 RAW images on a 4gb.

Wowzerz! I can put 237 RAW images on a 4GB card with my E3. What's the size of your files? Mine are 9-10mb but I can only put 237 images on a 4gb card, what's up with that?

cloudsme

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM

06/16/2008 08:04:14 AM · #13

Just to play Devil's Advocate: The prevailing suggestion is that two 4gb cards are safer than one 8gb card. I'm not sure that is true. A few questions.

Is a large card really more likely to fail than a smaller one?
If you are using two cards, you have twice the chance of failure than if you are using one, and more of a chance of losing a card.
Is photographing half a wedding really superior than getting the whole thing?
The logical extension of the argument that two is better than one, would lead you to consider 16-500mb cards.

I would go with the bigger card.

dsray

Canon EOS-550D Rebel T2i

Tamron AF 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 XR Di LD Aspherical IF for Canon

06/16/2008 08:16:38 AM · #14

Originally posted by cloudsme:

Just to play Devil's Advocate: The prevailing suggestion is that two 4gb cards are safer than one 8gb card. I'm not sure that is true. A few questions.

I have been shooting with a 1G, 2G and now 4G cards for 4 years now. The only failure I have ever had was the hard drive in my computer and THAT was the only hard drive malfunction I had ever had. My son managed to salvage the images, by the way.

The only images I ever actually lost were caused by my camera, well the lens, when the auto focus partially failed. The cards faithfully recorded the blurry images.

Truth of the matter, I'm looking hard at the 16G cards.

Hope I don't live to eat these words...

cpanaioti

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

06/16/2008 08:26:28 AM · #15

Originally posted by idnic:

BTW - You should get about 400 RAW images on a 4gb.

Actually, it will be around 300. The 40D files are 14 bit/channel so slightly larger than those from the 30D. Still a lot to lose in one go if something happens.

I use 2 GB cards. 150 images per card.

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

06/16/2008 09:11:02 AM · #16

Originally posted by cloudsme:

The prevailing suggestion is that two 4gb cards are safer than one 8gb card. I'm not sure that is true....

Even if the card itself doesn't fail (and chances are a good one won't), there are other reasons to have multiple cards. Sometimes I'll go off to shoot something and forget that I left my main card in an external reader. If that's your ONLY card, then it's game over. Likewise, if one card becomes unusable on site for any reason, you still have another to shoot with. While you may double the odds of a failure, you halve the odds of a total loss.

Telehubbie

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

06/16/2008 09:12:33 AM · #17

I recently went to purchase another 4 gig card, but since an 8 is so cheap nowadays I got a 16. I was only getting about 330 raw files on a 4 gig card with the 40D (Cindi must be doing something right :-) ), and whenever I change them during an event there's always an unnerving feeling I get in the pit of my stomach when I format the newly inserted card, even though I check the inserted card to make sure it's not stuff from the current shoot and I double check each card at home to make sure I copied the card. So it's nice to shoot for a LONG time before having to change cards, but at the same time I keep thinking "If this one card gets messed up I'm screwed." (at least, screwed more than if I lost 4 gigs) It's kind of funny, my cameras only have 3 digits to show how many shots left I have, so with the 16 gig I don't know exactly how many I have left until I get below 999.

PhotoDave

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM II

06/16/2008 10:12:18 AM · #18

Well I started using the high end Lexar cards and in the last 2 years Ive had 1 4gig and TWO 8gig cards crap out on me, Im sticking with the 4 gigs for now. As mentioned above if something goes wrong, which lately for me is a given which Im not getting in to ATM, then Id rather loose 1/2 the shoot than the entire shoot...

Message edited by author 2008-06-16 10:12:48.

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

06/16/2008 10:15:02 AM · #19

Originally posted by dknourek:

Well I started using the high end Lexar cards and in the last 2 years Ive had 1 4gig and TWO 8gig cards crap out on me...

The only problems I've ever had were with Lexar cards (and more than once).

idnic

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

06/16/2008 10:15:04 AM · #20

For what its worth - BellaPictures is among the largest wedding photography providers in the country and I know for fact that they send their wedding shooters out with a pelican case filled with 10 512mb cards for each event. The reasoning is - if one goes bad, you still have most of the coverage. Pain in the rump changing cards that often, but I see their point.

one2one

Olympus E-5

Olympus 7-14mm f/4.0 Zuiko Digital Zoom

06/16/2008 10:45:22 AM · #21

I can see the reasoning in that. I've never had a card go bad but I did have 2 very similar situations in the past. I did a shoot for my brother's coin collection and filled up a 2gb card with lots of great shots. I viewed the images on the LCD screen and all was nice. I get home to upload them to my PC and I see nothing on the card. As if it was wiped clean. The other time it happened I couldn't upload anything from it but could see files on the card. I never resolved the problem and figured it was a bad connection between the card and my camera. I no longer use those two cards any more and I haven't had any probs with my Sandisk Ultra II 4GB nor the A Data Turbo 266x 4GB for the past year, about 40,000 clicks.

Message edited by author 2008-06-16 10:46:00.

lykofos