# Best CF Card for the 7D



## Vishal (Jan 8, 2011)

I'm gonna be shooting some fast fighter jets with the 7D,
what would be a very fast CF Card in the $100~$150 range?

Both of these are 600x 
Transcend 16GB 600x *$79.95/-*
SanDisk 16GB 600x *$176.95/-*
while i respect SanDisk's reputation in the market but such a stark difference?

Your replies are most appreciated - Vishal


These cards are gross overkill, mostly out there for people with too much money.

The main advantage to a fast card is downloading with a UDMA firewire 800 reader. You will not get that advantage with a ordinary card reader, so unless you plan to equip your computer with firewire 800 and buy a reader, don't waste your money, buy a much lower priced and slower reader. 30 mb/s is more than fast enough.


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## bvukich (Jan 8, 2011)

I've probably had 30 memory cards over the last 10 years, of various types and brands. 4 failures over that time. 3 of the failures were Transcend brand. Failures were 2 micro SD (both Transcend, well under a year old), 1 SD (Transcend, only a month old), and 1 CF (off brand)

True, it's anecdotal evidence; but I don't buy Transcend anymore.


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## unruled (Jan 8, 2011)

you dont need much more than 133x to be able to record HD video. Sure, faster is better, but also pricier.


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## Bob Howland (Jan 8, 2011)

unruled said:


> you dont need much more than 133x to be able to record HD video. Sure, faster is better, but also pricier.



Maybe 133x work for the 7D, but have you checked the CF card requirements for the Canon XF100/105/300/305 video cameras? Faster may be pricier but it also will be usable further in the future. My guess is that the video on the next generation of Canon DSLRs will require top-of-the-line cards. FWIW, Canon seems to like Sandisk; I'm partial to Lexar.


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## cyberZ (Jan 8, 2011)

Hi,

Sandisk are good, but almost on it's flash cards is only reclame, advertising.
I use Transcend cards, SD microSD and CF, from a lot of year and *never* had a loss of data or a card damaged, *never*. This memory are fast, robust and the price is honest. Had used sandisk SD and microSD too, but Transcend are at the same speed, when at the same class, and sometime a little more fast.
Currently, I use the follow CF on my 7D. I use it from about 1 year:







However, my friends say that Lexar are good too, but I had never tryed it. 
Kingston too are good and fast memory, but of these had only used SD and microSD not CF, you can try!

Regards


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## unruled (Jan 8, 2011)

i have a 2gb kingston and a few 8gb kingston cards, havent had any issues


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## acoll123 (Jan 8, 2011)

I have a 7D and use it to shoot my kids basketball and baseball games. I use the high speed setting (8 FPS) and will regularly shoot 4-8 frames in sequence (shooting RAW) and have never had the camera slow to write to the card. I use the SanDisk 16GB 60MB/s UDMA Extreme Compact Flash Card. The RAW files are larger than the JPG files so I assume if I don't have problems shooting RAW it is less likely to slow down shooting JPG. I have had the card for about 6 months and use it almost every day for at least a few shots (I post a "photo-of-the-day" every day on Facebook).

You might do some more research but I remember reading that the camera can only write so fast so at some point the speed of the card will exceed the speed of the camera to write to it and you will lose the benefit of a faster card. However as someone else mentioned in the future, faster cameras may be able to take advantage of the faster cards.


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## pgabor (Jan 8, 2011)

The card's speed doesn't really matter... What matters is: how fast the dsrl can write on it. The card's speed is just a guide number, to know roughly what the card is capable for.

The other thing: Everyone comes with "i never had any data loss or problem with my *insert random company name here*". I have a bad news for you: Almost every card uses the same manufacturer's chip (samsung, hynix, etc...) so the reliability is just matter of luck. (but i don't think that this is a huge problem nowadays)
The most important thing about a card is the control "panel" (basicly one chip), this thing defines the true write speed of the card. Just think about it, every card type (even with the same "official speed") produces different result with the same setup, and this "panel" is the reason for this (but the differences are not too huge) In my experience, but online reviews claim the same: sandisk's are the fastest cards in this matter (for canon dslr, maybe for nikon for example lexars work better, i don't know)

3 years ago when i bought my 40D, i had the same problem, and i saw a test (i don't remember where is saw that) where they showed that extreme IV-s have the same speed in the 40D as the extreme III-s, so in this case 40D was the bottleneck. So you don't have to buy always the fastest card, in some cases its just an overkill. I used several sandisk and kingston card with different size and speed (4-8gb sandisks from extreme II to extreme IV, and 4-8-16gb kingstons with 66x-133x-266x speed) In my experience, sandisk extreme III-s are the best. But I'm sure, that they improved the write speed of the newer dslrs, so maybe extreme III's write speed by now are no longer faster then the dslr's write speed.

In the old days (40D, 5D mark I) dpreview done some test for this (under page: "timings and sizes" or "performance") but they gave up this good behave.


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## cyberZ (Jan 8, 2011)

pgabor said:


> The card's speed doesn't really matter... What matters is: how fast the dsrl can write on it. The card's speed is just a guide number, to know roughly what the card is capable for.



Obviously 
The camera before write in the buffer then empty the buffer on the card. I don't know what is the real write speed of the 7D(if anyone know, please say it), but Transcend with its 600x card it is surely fast, because I have about 20-23 raw shots at 8fps without any delay.
However, is simply, in my experience, Transcend cards are the best with honest price(why us pay the advertising for ...??)

Regards


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## olav (Jan 8, 2011)

http://www.traumflieger.de/desktop/kameras/testverfahren/kartentest.php
That's the place to find your Card! Unfortunately it is a german site but the numbers should be the same everywhere!


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## Vishal (Jan 9, 2011)

scalesusa]These cards are gross overkill said:


> I don't know what is the real write speed of the 7D(if anyone know, please say it), but Transcend with its 600x card it is surely fast, because I have about 20-23 raw shots at 8fps without any delay.
> However, is simply, in my experience, Transcend cards are the best with honest price(why us pay the advertising for ...??)


Right! 

If it dosent burn image data on the card @ over 400x then no point spending the extra $$$ on more expensive cards.

So *FINALLY* the question is, What is the write speed of the 7D?
Slower than 300x? 400x? 600x or faster?


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## bvukich (Jan 9, 2011)

Vishal said:


> So *FINALLY* the question is, What is the write speed of the 7D?
> Slower than 300x? 400x? 600x or faster?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOALy-tYdUk

Looks like even a 600x card isn't fast enough for a 7D, but getting pretty close. The fastest cards I know of are the Hoodman 675x (100MB/s).


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## Vishal (Jan 9, 2011)

bvukich said:


> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOALy-tYdUk


Thanks Mate





That video & this one > 
SpeedTest Transcend: 100x Vs 300x Vs 400x Vs 600x > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqi6BWOyX-U 

Things are a lot more clearer now


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## bvukich (Jan 9, 2011)

Off topic, but this is an awesome photo of yours: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Jet-Airways/Boeing-737-85R/1787249/&sid=564c8a35834b5b91b8aa9cd9ba5b4aed

Is it a single photo, or a stack (composite) of multiple of the same plane?

You should start a thread with some of your favorites and how they were taken.


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## Vishal (Jan 9, 2011)

Thank You Very Much!
It is a Single Image - No Manipulations just contrast & sharpened.

Those are a total of 7 planes - Boeing 737s & Airbus A320s of various Airlines of India.

Here's an alternate & a more Head-On view of things > http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6313404


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## rhanesworth10 (May 13, 2011)

The canon 7S write speed maxes out just below 53mb/sec. You Would think the a 60MB/sec card would be fast enough, but with the faster 600X cards the camera buffer empty's faster so you can shoot continuously as the camera writes to the card. See attached site.
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-10044-10297 Can't help you with brand I've always used sandisk but am planning on Lexar 32GB 600X as my next card. Good luck


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## Flake (May 14, 2011)

The more expensive cards have second interface chip which helps with the speed.

Sorry rhanesworth but the Rob Galbraith test is a joke trying to assess data transfer rates by standing over a camera with a stop watch and timing by when the write light comes on & goes off - well try presenting that as evidence to any engineer. If it were possible to accurately measure the data transfer the manufacturers would have done it, but it's not that simple.

memory cards have a minimal effect on the frame rate, and the maximum number of shots unless they're very slow, now you need a resonably quick card for video on a DSLR, but the single most important thing is reliability. A whole days shooting can be worth over Â£1000 it's not nice having to go back & do it all again simply because a cheap card has failed!


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## maharzan (May 15, 2011)

I am using SanDisk Extreme III CF card 8GB. Its working great over a year and half now, shoot stills/videos just fine. I have 4 of them.


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## du9gvu (May 15, 2011)

I have 5 Scandisk 60mb/sec UDMA 8GB cards for my 7D and so far no issues as to speed, read/write and transfer, bought it from Amazon.com at a fairly half the price compared to local camera stores. I tried several cards (30mb) but can't catch up when taking high speed shoots, 7D has dual processor and needs at least 60mb/s fast cards.


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## K3nt (May 19, 2011)

I got a Kingston Ultimate 32GB 600x CF card for my 7D and couldn't be happier. The price/performance ratio is spot on. Costs about the same (or less) than the 16GB SanDisk version. I paid 130eur for mine (around 150-160USD).
I'm gonna get me some more of these babies. 
Whether I need the speed or not is another question. I just like knowing the card has the performance when I do need it + I'm a tech geek in general. ;D

I'm not going to argue pros and cons, this card worked for me and might be worth looking in to in your case too.


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## Helix (Oct 28, 2011)

K3nt said:


> I got a Kingston Ultimate 32GB 600x CF card for my 7D and couldn't be happier. The price/performance ratio is spot on. Costs about the same (or less) than the 16GB SanDisk version. I paid 130eur for mine (around 150-160USD).
> I'm gonna get me some more of these babies.
> Whether I need the speed or not is another question. I just like knowing the card has the performance when I do need it + I'm a tech geek in general. ;D
> 
> I'm not going to argue pros and cons, this card worked for me and might be worth looking in to in your case too.



The Kingston 600x Ultimate cards are not great at all. Bad in fact. Just bought some of these 16Gb "600x, 90Mb/s" cards, and my Sandisk 60mB/s (400x) Extreme writes much much faster. 

The Kingston reads at about 57Mb/s with my USB3 card reader and writes at *17*Mb/s. 

The Sandisk Extreme reads at 58Mb/s writes at 43Mb/s. Really, really noticable in my 7D. 

False advertising. Not happy. Stay away!


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## niccyboy (Oct 28, 2011)

I use 8, 16 & 32gb Sandisk 60mbs cards in my Canon gear.. I've never had any problems, but never had anything to compare it to. I've also formatted a card and used the software that Sandisk provide with the cards and recovered ALL of my 8gb of data.

On the Nikon d3x's we use 32gb 90mbs Sandisks and they are amazing. So fast to write and download on our firewire readers. We were originally using Lexar cards and had multiple data errors when transferring and card errors while shooting. 

I definitely recommend a firewire CF reader. I have a few of these..http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/492648-REG/Lexar_RW034_001_Professional_UDMA_FireWire_800.html... they work very well, even when daisy chained directly to a firewire HDD.


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## DCMoney (Oct 28, 2011)

Iâ€™ve been using a SanDisk 16GB 60MB/s Extreme for 2 years now with my 7D and have never had any problems with the card or noticed any lack of speed writing to the card. At an air show a year ago I took 2200+ pictures all jpg's but the card and camera was perfect all day. Iâ€™ve never had a sandisk card fail me and will continue using them.


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## EYEONE (Oct 28, 2011)

I have 4 Transcend CF cards, all 600x (two 16gb and two 8gb). And of those I've had one be bad. I've actually got to send it back to BHPhoto today.


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## candyman (Oct 28, 2011)

I came across some info on the internet:



> "7D Manual says that for VIDEO your card should do at least 8MB/sec read and write.
> Assuming cards don't necessarily perform at their rated capabilities but below, take a card that is performing slightly better.
> 
> Considering that 1x = 150KB/sec, here are the most common card speeds:
> ...



I myself use Transcend 32 GB 133x and shooting RAW (AI-Servo) at soccergames. No problem here
(I also have Sandisk 8 GB (60mb)	

Here is the Wikipedia info on speed of cards


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## ianhar (Oct 28, 2011)

I only bu cf from trusted brand. I have few sandisk and lexar n my bag. Why i would throw money on things that are really small compared to my hand? Dodgy brand almost usually gives dodgy result. You might be lucky to have no problem or what so ever with that dodgy card. But dont expect your client to understand your problem when you say "sorry but i lost all the files from yesterday shoot" its not his problem its yours. You might even get sued if there a contract for it. Bottom line. Always buy from trusted brand. Its not like lexar or sandisk never fail. They do fail but the probability is smaller than other dodgy brand. 

Remember to buy your cf cards from official retailer. There are a lot of fake sandisk out there. BEWARE WHEN MAKING PURCHASES ONLINE. ESPECIALLY WITH SOME DODGY ONLINE RETAILER.


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## Benhider (Oct 28, 2011)

Don't buy the Kingston card.

It is much slower than a Lexar or Sandisk


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## Harley (Oct 28, 2011)

Agreed. SanDisk hands down, preferably the SandDisk Extreme. You get what you pay for (and then some).


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## kennykodak (Oct 28, 2011)

Harley said:


> Agreed. SanDisk hands down, preferably the SandDisk Extreme. You get what you pay for (and then some).



agreed...
if the best of them are made in china, would you really want to go cheap?


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## Paul D (Oct 30, 2011)

Another hands on with the Canon EOS 1D X at www.paul-d.tv/blog:

http://paul-d.tv/blog/2011/10/28/canon-eos-1d-x-hands-on-report/


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## TAR (Oct 30, 2011)

from my personal experience ,

I have one 

8GB sandisk extreme III

Centon 16G- 233X ..they both perform similar with my 7D for more than a year and centon is very cheap , I will not buy Sandisk again.

and now i am planning to buy this one , seems really good 

32Gb 600X for 51 euros

http://flashraptor.de/product_info.php?info=p3_compactflash-32-gb-speedindex-600x-bulkware.html


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Oct 30, 2011)

Having seen defective off brand CF memory burn out two Canon DSLR's before it was figured out, I stick to the major brands. Even more important, I buy from a reliable dealer. There are many counterfit cards out there, and they are slower than the real thing.

I'm always skeptical when someone tests a major brand and finds it to be slow, is it counterfit?? Its been a big Problem in the UK with even major dealers getting caught up in counterfit memory and batteries, I hope thats been cleaned up now.


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## pj1974 (Oct 31, 2011)

I have a Canon 7D, and use a number of CF cards, most of which are 'previous model' Sandisk Extreme III and an Ultra II - which are rated at 30MB/s. Note - some time back Sandisk changed the ratings of their disks, so when someone says "Sandisk Extreme n or Ultra n" it actually depends when that card was made (better to use the 'MB/s rating' if displayed).

Back in the 'olden days' (ie when I had my first digital P&S that used CF and my old HP PDA) I also had a few other types and brands (eg Sandisk standard 'blue', Kingston, Transcend, etc) But some of these are so small, that they only large enough to hold 1 or 2 photos from my cameras now! 

Several years ago, I did a lot of testing of the speeds of those 'old' CF cards (mainly in my USB2.0 card reader), and actually there *was* quite a lot of difference in both read/write speed. I did the same tests with USB1.1 and USB2.0 flash memory (the 'USB thumb drive' type). I won't bore you all with the details, but just share a few insights: a) the faster CF cards had similar write speeds to the fastest USB2.0 thumb drives (back about 5 years ago) b) the (Sandisk) Micro Cruzer drives I bought for myself and another for a friend were both consistently slow and seemed to be very 'fussy' about format (the exact 'block' size, etc c) I did buy a faulty USB drive (would often 'corrupt' data). I took it back and replacement was fine.

Now to answer the OP's question. My more recent experience is that the Sandisk cards that have 30MB/s disks work well for my normal shooting with the 7D (I frequently do a burst of 3 to 5 usually large JPEGS). Occasionally (eg ad-hoc sports or small fast birds in flight), I will take more - but nearly always just JPEG. However I have done tests using my 30MB/s and other (slower) cards and if shooting RAW (and esp RAW+JPEG) in a burst, it seems to slow down after 1.5 to just over 2 seconds of burst (when the camera is writing images from buffer memory to CF memory). I've used a faster card from a friend, (UDMA) - and the write to card is noticably quicker. 

If I will get another card, size and reliability is probably more important to me than speed - and I'll probably get Sandisk again - because of their reputation and guarantee here in Australia. I would probably get a fast card (something 60MB/s or faster) 'just in case' I ever get into more sports or will change my workflow to be RAW. I've never had a hiccup with any Sandisk brand CF card (in terms of reliability, formatting, corruption).

Finally, on the 'aside' - I've found the Sandisk software that comes with the latest few CF cards I've bought great for recovering 'lost photos'. Actually on 2 separate occasions I have recovered data from friends' memory cards (one from a P&S and another a DSLR) who 'thought' they had lost all their precious photos (read: hundres family and holiday!) In one case I recovered about 80% of photos from a SD card where the camera (or user) had accidentally deleted the photos, and in the other case all but about 2 or 3 photos (several hundred restored). My friends were so thankful to me for recovering it. I always encourage people to back up photos (and save in another building, so that in case of theft or natural disastor - one set might be saved!) :

Regards

Paul


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