Saturday, 8 January 2011
Memory Cards - cf card, 7d
The performance seems to match or exceed the requirements of Canon 5D Mk II and does not cause any problem while taking pictures or shooting HD video. Most demanding picture format on 5D Mk II is RAW + JPEG (Fine+Large), and 32GB card can usually hold more than 900 of those. Transcend 400X - 16 GB Compact Flash Memory Card TS16GCF400 (Blue)
Works perfetly in all Canon EOS 7d HD Movie modes. I purchased two of them along with my 7d and have just ordered a 32 GB Transcend to extend HD movie capacity from 48 min with this 16 GB to 96 min.
May 2011 Update: While this 400x Transcend continues to work perfectly with my 7d under almost all conditions, I have recently found one condition where the faster 600x Transcend MIGHT make a very modest difference. When you are shooting RAW at 8 frames per second with this 400x, the camera slows down to about 1 frame per second after the buffer is full -- about six or eight shots. This would also happen at 600x, but I dont know how much it would improve. I just performed an experiment with my 400x Transcend/7D and got the following number of shots off in five seconds:
1. Large JPG only: 39 shots (buffer never overloads).
2. Large RAW only: 24 shots (slows down after about 8 shots).
3. Large RAW plus Large JPG: 17 shots.
In summary, there is no reason for 7D owners to spend the big bucks to go from 400x to 600x for video and probably no significant improvement even for 8fps RAW. Check out the table on page 59 of your EOS 7D Instruction Manual and do the math for yourself. High speed (8fps) RAW generates about 200MB/s while the 400x cards and 600x cards handle only 60MB/s and 90MB/s reapectively. Also note than if you are shooting RAW + JPEG, you can more than double your burst length by going to RAW only and converting later. Burst capability is therefore much more about the camera's buffer size and processing speed than about card speed. I have concluded that this 400X Transcend is the one for me and find no reason to spend more. If you are a 7D/600x owner who wishes to repeat this test with a 600x Transcend, I would greatly appreciate your reply to this post. For me, it would be an expensive experiment.
While searching for a CF card for my new camera, I didn't find many specific card results. So if you are using a Nikon D300s, this review is for you.
This card works great in my Nikon D300s. Here are my results at 7 frames per second:
RAW-12 BIT - Buffer show 17 frames but shoots 25 frames before buffer fills. Pause for about one second and can shoot for about 5 shots. Pause for 3 seconds and can shoot for 16 before buffer fills. Capacity shows 770 shots available but goes over 800.
JPEG-Large-Fine - Buffer shows 21 but never fills and will shoot at 7fps up to the Nikon limit of 100 shots. It goes down to about 7 or 8 in the buffer but never slows down.
Capacity shows 1400 (1.4K) photos available. I don't shoot JPEG much so I don't know the actual totals. 1400+ is a lot for one card.
I consider myself a serious amateur photographer and this card fulfills all my needs. My photography is mostly HDR, landscapes, and my kids (both at home and playing sports).
Unless you need to shoot in RAW 25+ photos at 7fps consistently, this is a great card for the money. If you shoot JPEG, it will work as fast as the camera.
I purchased this 16GB card for the same price as the Sandisk 8GB card. So for the price of a Sandisk 16GB card, I bought two Transcend 16GB cards. Until this card, I always shot with Sandisk Extremes III sdhc cards.
Shipped fast with Prime.
I will update here if I have any issues.
One minute, I was looking through images from a very important shoot on the back of my 7D and patting myself on the back.
The next minute, after turning off the camera and putting the card in my card reader, I couldn't see anything in Finder.
I turned on PhotoRec and tried to bring the card up. It told me that the card was 31.5 MB, not 16 GB. I tried a couple of other software packages with no luck.
I consulted a forensic expert (seriously, he had a ridiculous, proprietary, homemade card-scanning machine, and does lots of work with data recovery for the legal field) who ended up using a dummy card to bypass this card's controller. He told me that all of the memory on this card contained zeros. And that somehow, this card's firmware was incorrectly reporting itself.
My client's photos can never, ever be recovered. Ever. And this is probably because someone at Transcend wanted to save $5 on this card and bought cheaper, less reliable memory chips than they should have.
I've had no response from Transcend tech support after several days and am never buying one of their products again, even if it's $30 cheaper than the Sandisk version. Even if it's $200 cheaper than the Sandisk version, for that matter.
Don't buy this card! Don't buy anything from this company! And feel free to e-mail me to confirm that I don't work or consult for anyone in the electronics industry. We can even meet for coffee and maybe draw pictures of Transcend CompactFlash cards with crayons and then rip them into tiny shreds.
Cheap memory cards are cheap because margins are cut. And these are not margins that you want cut when it comes to crucial images for your clients. - Cf Card - Cf - Compactflash Cards - 7d'
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