Most Effective CF Card for a 350D Buffer Size?

[Trieu]

Hi All, I currently use a 1Gb Extreme III Sandisk card and am looking at buying another CF card... most probably 4Gb, maybe 8Gb.

Does the 350D buffer size use up the speed of an Extreme III CF Card (20MB/second sequential read and write) or will I "not" notice the speed difference with a less expensive Ultra II CF Card (10MB/second sequential read and write)?

Or... any other card for that matter, Kingston, Transends... etc, etc.. BTW.. info from the Sandisk site.

[MattC]

You are wasting money on the really fast cards - you won't see any performance benefits with more than 60x. Also, you will be hard pressed to see the difference between a 45x and a 60x most of the time.
The only benefits in buying really fast cards is if you plan on purchasing a camera that can fully utilise them and transfer speeds to your PC (this seems to be enough for some.

Cheers

[Trieu]

Thanks for the information

Yeap, I got jipped something bad when I first got my camera. Now I am deteremined to get the right CF Card for my 350D.

[gstark]

What Matt says is correct. The buffer size isn't the issue, it's the maxim,um speed of transfer of data from the buffer onto the card that the camera can handle that's the issue here.

There are two other points of consideration that you do need to consider though. First of all is the speed of data transfer from the card to your computer. Faster cards will offload their data more quickly than a slower card, but the speed difference is perhaps in the order of maybe a minute - total - for this task. I don't consider that to be significant, but others might. And I'mpresuming that you're using a card reader, which is the preferred method for this; if you're hooking the camera up to your computer, the camera's data transfer rate comes back into the picture, of course.

The second issue is one of your photographic future: do you see yourself upgrading your camera to something faster in the next few months? If the answer to that question is no, then there's not even any future benefit to be gained by you in buying a faster card.

[Marty]

Hey Trieu,
like said previously, it depends if you are planning to upgrade in the future.
The Sandisk Ultra is a good card for the 350D, getting an Extreme will not be of any extra benefit to you right now.
The Extremes are reported to work better in more extreme environments, eg very cold or very hot temperatures.
I personally limit my card size to 2mb, as I am concerned about the potential of losing all images on one card. I dont find it inconvenient to change cards, even when shooting sports.
Just to let you know, when I download a 2mb card full of images onto my laptop it takes over 30 mins through the laptops card slot.
Marty

[gstark]

Just to let you know, when I download a 2mb card full of images onto my laptop it takes over 30 mins through the laptops card slot.
Marty[/quote]

How old is the laptop?

That sounds wayyyyyyyyyy too long.

[moz]

Just to let you know, when I download a 2mb card full of images onto my laptop it takes over 30 mins through the laptops card slot.

That sounds wayyyyyyyyyy too long.

I suspect it's 2GB

It does sound slow - my geriatric PIII laptop with a single USB1.1 port can empty a 2GB CF card thru the PC card slot in less than 10 minutes (I could check if you really want). Using the firewire PC card and firewire reader is the same speed, so the bottleneck is in the laptop. The firewire reader drops it to less than my attention span for a 4GB card

[Marty]

My laptop is so old it runs on steam.!
It's an early P4m, maybe 4 or 5 years old.
I am willing to trade if you are interested.?

[spada]

I don't have 2 GB card but I download ( via Reader USB 2.0 ) 1GB trancent full, it take a bit more than 2 min.
Marty your lap top might have a USB 1 , it transfer 10MBps compare to USB 2.0 480 MBps.

regards
spada

[Marty]

Hey Spada,
I have USB 1, three slots which are already full on the laptop.
I don't use a card reader as I already have way too many wires sticking out the back of the laptop.
The pc card slot is easy to use, and I am a lazy bast**d.
Thanks for the advice, I just have to get out and buy one.
Cheers

[Trieu]

Thanks for the info guys

Looks like my next pruchase will be the Ultra II or Birddog's Transcend cards... I must have got really jipped.

Seems like the best way to download is not via the camera, but to take the card and chuck it in a cardreader? I have only ever used the camera via USB cable to the laptop/pc, is this not good for the camera? (I believe I have just asked another question.... different post maybe?)

[Trieu]

Ops... forgot to mention.. won't be upgrading for a loooooong time.

Need to fully exploit my baby 350D first

[MattC]

Marty,
I assume that you meant a PCMCIA to CF when you referred to your laptops "card slot"... or does it actually have a card slot? Not that it really matters, it is the same thing.
I have had a rotten run with PCMCIA adaptors. With five different laptops the CPU gets pegged and download speeds are not much better than you suggest. These days I use a USB reader which is much quicker.

Cheers

[MattC]

Thanks for the info guys

Looks like my next pruchase will be the Ultra II or Birddog's Transcend cards... I must have got really jipped.

Seems like the best way to download is not via the camera, but to take the card and chuck it in a cardreader? I have only ever used the camera via USB cable to the laptop/pc, is this not good for the camera? (I believe I have just asked another question.... different post maybe?)

Do exactly what you have said there and you will be right, especially since you have no plans to upgrade. I do not know about jipped. Money aside, are you happy with the camera/card performance?

For the last bit... $20 card reader or $2000 card reader? Save on the wear and tear.

Cheers

[birddog114]

Actually the Transcend 120x CF card is equivalent with other side as Ultra III,
I didn't have any suffer with 80x on my D2x same as my card readers, the 120x is little faster on my D2h and D2x but none any sign of variation of speed (write) on the D70, Transcend is now going to go with 120x in all of their range.

[Marty]

Hey Matt,
I was refering to the PCMCIA to CF adaptor. I do actually have a card slot on the laptop but it is for SD, and no matter how hard I push I cannot get my CF cards in there...
I am an old school photgrapher (film....), so watching the images transfer from my card to the laptop at a very slow rate reminds me of the long wait in developing film (joking).
Marty

[firsty]

just for reference
here is a cf card speed comparison for the 350D
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-7699

the cards in the blue section at the top perform so close to each other that you can't notice the difference in real life

[gstark]

Marty,

I was refering to the PCMCIA to CF adaptor. I do actually have a card slot on the laptop but it is for SD, and no matter how hard I push I cannot get my CF cards in there...

You have to fold the card in half first. I thought that everyone knew that.

We've been using that technique for years. I can remember getting a support call from an end user when I was working with Westpac and they were just starting to roll out PS/2s to replace their ATs, which also meant that the 5 1/4 floppies were being replaced by 3 1/2 disks. She had basically the same problem, but folding the disk wasn't working for her either.

[Marty]

How stupid of me not to think of folding in it half...
I remember seeing floppy disks that were 8 inches, or something like that on old computers. Big enough for dinner plates, but extremely sensetive and un-reliable to use.
Marty

[Trieu]

Thanks Keith, that site is most useful.

4Gb - Here I come!!

[DaveB]

The PCMCIA CF adaptors are very slow: usually ~1MB/s. This is because the interface is polled (the CPU has to do all the work, with no assistance from interrupts). If your laptop's "PCMCIA" slot is actually a CardBus slot, there are CardBus adaptors (e.g. badged by Delkin) which will transfer approx 10x faster, as they're using a 32-bit DMA/interrupt-driven interface.

USB1 readers are approx 1 MB/s, but good USB2 readers and Firewire readers can be up around 10 MB/s.
I use either the Firewire reader built into my NextoCF PSD, the USB2 reader built into my desktop LCD (maybe ~4 MB/s) or a SanDisk USB2 CF reader (the faster "ESP" model which is 9+ MB/s). Of course, the speed of the card itself also comes into play...

For your 350D I'd suggest an UltraII would provide enough speed, and not be embarassingly slow if/when you DO upgrade the camera. 4GB cards are slightly more than 2x the price of the 2GB cards at the moment though.

[Sheila Smart]

I am another in the camp of keep it small and buy two! I would rather have two 1 gb cards rather than one 2 gb card. I know cards have improved over the years but they still do corrupt occasionally.

Cheers
Sheila