CF cards for 50D?

[Chris Brennan]

I'll be adding a 50D body soon and have been advised by some people that there will be marked increase in performance if I use UDMA cards such as the SanDisk Ducati series. I've been using Sandisk Extreme III cards for my 40D, and they have worked perfectly. I know I can continue using these cards but am wondering what will suffer, in the grand scheme of things, if I don't go the UDMA way.

[Dave Phillips]

I don't think you will suffer with lesser cards like extreme III....they will only work as fast as the in camera buffer can dump. Use what you already have and see

[William Malacarne]

You may want to look them up here.
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-9672

Bill

[Roger Clark]

I try and buy the fastest largest capacity cards I can, within reason. Because soon those cards will seem slow and low capacity. So the larger and faster, the longer I will use it before upgrading. I look at the knee in the curve: it seems that speed and capacity scale pretty linearly except for the latest fastest/largest cards. So, for example, if an 8GB card is about twice a 4GB card, I'll get the 8. If a small increase in speed significantly increases the price, I'll skip it. For example, I've recently been buying 8 GB extreme IV and lexar professional (300x +) cards.
After getting a 5D Mark II, those 8GB cards don't seem so large anymore. I buy enough cards to not recycle cards while on a trip. Currently I have over 100 GB of cards. I pass the slower, smaller capacity cards on to my (adult) kids.

[Chris Brennan]

Thank you all for your information. I had previously found the Rob Galbraith info. Although the Sandisk "Ducati" is rated at the top of his list, I'll probably plan to invest in some Extreme IV cards as they do appear to be a bit faster than my "III"'s.

[Don Saunders]

Chris,

There are two factors to UDMA technology. One is speed at which the cards can accept images written to. The second is the speed at which the images can be downloaded. Both are important with RAW files from a 15 MP sensor!

UDMA speeds
300x = 40 MB/sec
305x = 45 MG/sec (SanDisk Extreme IV)

The image file size of a 50D RAW file is large, so the faster you can clear it from the buffer the better. And the huge files will be slow to download if you use a non-UDMA card reader. I would recommend buying a UDMA card reader. My Lexar card reader was about $25, after MIR. Here is the results of my own download tests:

Lexar UDMA CF card reader (USB 2.0)
42 Raw files at 22MB each
20 sec w/Lexar = 27 MB/sec
6 min w/o Lexar = 2.75 MB/sec

Because of the large RAW files, when I bought UDMA CF cards, I bought 16GB cards. If you want to photograph birds, get big cards. Time your purchases to coincide with manufacturer rebates.

[Jay Gould]

Hi, has anyone used Transcend CF cards. Apparently, at the last "big" photo show in Los Angeles that my brother attends each year, the Canon reps at the show recommended Transcend. My brother purchased a 16gb for testing and was happy with the results. Jay

[William Malacarne]

Hi, has anyone used Transcend CF cards. Apparently, at the last "big" photo show in Los Angeles that my brother attends each year, the Canon reps at the show recommended Transcend. My brother purchased a 16gb for testing and was happy with the results. Jay


Jay

I have 4 of them, two 4 GB and two 8 GB for over a year and they work fine.

Bill

[Alfred Forns]

Jay ...... sound advice from Don !!!

[Kerry Perkins]

Chris, I have the 50D as well as a 400D (Digital Rebel XTi). I am using the Sandisk Extreme IV UDMA cards in the 50D. I once had to borrow one of the Extreme III cards from my 400D to use in the 50D and I thought the camera was broken. I wouldn't use anything slower than the UDMA cards in the 50D, as they slow the throughput down significantly.

[Jay Gould]

You guys (girls too!) there is simply to much to learn!!

This speed information pertains to a 50D; I just caught that after the initial post. Unfortunately, there is no delete ability or I would have deleted this and then included the DIFFERENT information for the 1D3; I will do that in a separate post.

Thanks to BPN I did a little research - for all of those that have 50Ds/I don't! (all prices Adorama today):

Lexar Pro 300 16GB - 31.5MB/s - $140/per card
Lexar Pro 300 8GB - 30.8MB/s - $50/per card

SanDisk Extreme IV 45MB ED 16GB - 31.6MB/s - $150/per card

Transcend UDMA 300X 16GB - 31MB/s - $170/per card
Transcend UDMA 300X 8GB - 28.7MB/s - $90/per card

Oh yeah, my old SanDisk Extreme III 30MB ED 4GB card - 22.8MB/s

Based upon the capacity/price per GB theory, it appears that the Lexar 8GB wins hands down. Unfortunately, that means carrying twice the number of cards!!

Does 8MB/s really make that much of a difference? :(

Cheers, Jay

[William Malacarne]

newegg.com has the Transcend 16GB Compact Flash (CF) Flash Card Model TS16GCF300
for 146.00...I don't think they have the Sandisk IV in 16 GB size.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208419

Bill

[Charlie Woodrich]

I purchased this (Transend 16GB) card for my 50D and it works extremely well. It has a very fast write speed especially when considering the size of the file.