Memory cards?

[Abaddon]

I've been looking at the 32gb Sandisk Extreme 3's, but I'm wondering if the more expensive 16gb Extreme 4's would be better for the 7d. I know the 4's are more pro but maybe not so much better to justify the price.

What you guys gettin?

[powervideo]

I'm wondering exactly the same thing...

Peter

[NoxNoctus]

I've heard extreme IIIs would work fine. If any 5D owners could verify this

[ydgmdlu]

I use Kingston Elite Pro 32GB cards on my 5D: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134901

[Kegan]

Huge price difference. From the limited reviews on newegg, I can't tell - is that $100 difference evident in terms of reliability and speed?

Thanks,

Kegan

[NoxNoctus]

I use Kingston 16gb 133x. Solid card. Kingston pioneered solid state memory, you can trust em

[ydgmdlu]

I haven't noticed any issues. But then again, I'm ashamed to say that I haven't subjected my gear to a lot of use, either.

Kingston's a good brand, and the transfer rates of today's memory cards don't even saturate USB 2.0. 44 Mbps (5.5 MB/s) recording bandwidth is not very demanding at all. I don't see the point of using expensive SanDisk cards with the 5D or 7D.

[Kegan]

Thanks a lot for the quick responses guys. I think I'll order one too - can't beat it for the price. Plus, I'm also a big Kingston fan - all my USB sticks are Kingston, I just haven't used any of their CF cards.

Ordering this so I should have it when the 7D arrives. 4GB = 12 minutes at 720 or 1080p, right? So that should give me 96 minutes worth of footage. That will work out nicely I believe. Keep the couple 2 and 4GBs I already have for photos and stuff.

Kegan

[powervideo]

I think I'm going to go for the 16gb Sandisk Extreme IV's. Maybe I'm just superstitious but with heavy continous and repeated HD video recording, I don't want to take any chances. With the rebate, if you buy three IV 16gbs seperately on Amazon, they only cost US$118.00 each.

[ydgmdlu]

I doubt that a SanDisk card is much less likely to fail than a Kingston. If a card fails, it fails, no matter what the brand. The end result is the same. A lower quality card might fail sooner. But with ANY card, you'll still lose everything that you have on it, without warning, and it could be in the middle of a shoot.

"Premium" brands like SanDisk use FUD in their marketing. To what extent does the price premium translate into real-world gains? How do you justify spending at least double the price? I don't think that a competently manufactured card would last only half as long as a "premium" card.

[ydgmdlu]

And actually, if you go for half the capacity, then you'll wear-out the card twice as fast.

[NoxNoctus]

How many cards have you had wear out?


I still have some old 512 lexars that are still rock solid. I've yet to lose a cf card due to failure

[ydgmdlu]

I haven't worn-out a card. But I'm just trying to address the concerns of those who choose the expensive cards because of worries about "reliability" and "lifespan." Poorly manufactured cards might spontaneously die after weeks or months, but a competently manufactured card should last a long time indeed.

But a card with half of the capacity of another card would go through double the number of write/rewrite cycles given the same amount of data, so the card would last about half as long. It's not like there's a huge difference in durability between different makes of flash memory.

[Abaddon]

I'm still debating. The Sandisks seem to have the best reputations, and I've always been happy with them. But for all I know, the other brands may be just as good.

[robmneilson]

I'm glad that it seems the Extreme III's are good enough considering the Extreme IV with a 45mb/s rate are $183 for a 16gb card!

[Abaddon]

Yeah, the Extreme 4's are fast. I just don't know if that speed is even needed.

[Michael Olsen]

Yeah, the Extreme 4's are fast. I just don't know if that speed is even needed.

Keep an eye on the bits (b) and bytes (B). Someone please check my math/reasoning.

Lets just overestimate and say the 7D puts out a consistent 50 Mbps (that's megabits).
That translates into 6.25 MBps (that's megabytes) because there are 8 bits in a byte (50Mbps/8=6.25 MBps).

So, theoretically, a card that has a 6.25 MBps read speed would be sufficient. However, listed read speeds often aren't spot on as inefficiencies exist within the card.

The 133x card should do 25 MBps - which is four times the necessary theoretical read speed of 6.25 MBps. That should provide more than enough room for inefficiency.

[Abaddon]

B&H has the 32gb Extreme 3's at $179.95 with a $40 mail-in rebate.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/571863-REG/SanDisk_SDCFX3_032G_A31_32GB_Extreme_III_CompactFl ash.html

[NoxNoctus]

Keep an eye on spoofee.com. They always have the feelers out for cheaply priced memory cards on the various sites

[Barry_Green]

If you want to get some to try out, order Extreme III 4GB cards from Amazon. They offer them cheaper than anyone, they're about $30, and they're sold through Adorama, which makes them eligible for the rebate. Get two cards, pay $60, get $30 back from SanDisk, and you've got 8GB of storage for $30 total.

[xbourque]

FWIW, the manual says that you need to use a card with a read/write speed of 8 MB/s.

Anything faster will make downloading to your computer quicker (if you have a FireWire card reader or ExpressCard reader) and might give you an advantage when shooting stills in burst mode. But it won't change anything when recording video.

So called 133x cards say they will give you 20MB/s write... so that's WAY more than you need for video on 7D.

-X

[Kegan]

The reason I consider it though, is because I own all SanDisk cards for my DSLR currently, but all my USB sticks are Kingston. Considering they're both great brands for memory, I think I'll give Kingston a shot...and then if it proves to me too unreliable, even if just by fluke - I'll go back to SanDisk.

I have no issues trying brands when they're well known for something, or even new brands that boast good reviews. Besides, I rather carry around a couple smaller cards as backups and have a larger capacity one that can be my main card.

Kegan

[jls4]

I've owned lots of cards through photography and I've had lots of them fail over 5 of them. I've heard many photographers talk about throwing out old cards after about a years use or so many events. For videographers, they may not go through the cards quite as fast, but who knows. Giving my .02 because of the suggestion that cards don't mess up - they do - with serious use they will soon fail. But recording and re-recording say 50 to 60 times should be easily done with no problems even on a cheap card.