Can anyone recommend Compact Flash cards that support the full functions of a Canon 7D? What transfer rate is enough to allow the 7D to fully function (e.g. sustain 8 fps, HD video)? Are there any brands that prove "better"? Any other advice or experience welcome.
Dan - I am using the new San Disk Extreme Pro 16, 32 & 64 GB CF cards (UDMA 6). These cards are really very fast indeed so that buffer problems are unlikely to be a problem at all. They work great with the 7D for movie clips and RAW files.
One drawback with them is that the camera only has three digits for the number of photos still available. So much of the time with the 32GB and 64GB cards it just shows '999'. You do need to be careful selecting a card reader. I bought a Lexar UDMA CD reader - which does not work with these CF cards. So I now have gone back to a San Disk CF reader.
Using the 64 GB card is a bit scary considering how many photos would be lost in a disaster. So I will mostly use 16 or 32 GB cards.
It's interesting how thinking changes over the years. I remember a few years ago when I got a 4GB card and people said they would never use a card that large. Too much risk if an accident happened, they would only use 1 GB and 2GB cards. Jump forward a few years and now it is hard to find a 1GB or 2 GB card and 4GB cards are thought of as small. The norm has become 8GB, 16GB and 32 GB cards and many people think the 64GB cards are risky. A few years from now we'll be using 512GB cards and the 64GB cards will be small and hard to even buy.
I cannot speak for you guys in the States as very few American retailers will ship goods to Swaziland/South Africa. So maybe you can shop around. For those of us in Africa we mostly use B&H. Great service and price (way better than the prices on SanDisk's website).
Compact Flash cards
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