most reliable CF card for C300???

N

Nicholas Natteau

Veteran
What is the most reliable CF card for the C300???

And how much recording time do you get at maximum quality 1080p24 50Mbps?

Thanks very much in advance.
 
Nicholas Ive been running the same Sandisk extreme (60MB/s - 32GB) cards non stop. Never had an issue.

32GB - about 80 mins
64GB - about 160 mins.

FWIW I prefer to have more of the 32GB cards.
 
Agree with Noel, SanDisk 32GB 60MB cards are very reliable never a problem, I always record to A B slots at the same time, if ever l should have a corrupted card l have an instant back up no lost shots.

At present l have 20 cards, enough for a five day shoot without ever having to worry about reformatting a card within the shoot.

The price keeps dropping, media is cheaper month on month. In feb 32GB cards are £ 115 now £ 75 :-)
 
Thanks very much everybody. Will go for the Sandisk Extreme then. 32GB should be more than enough. I believe that's 80 minutes, more than enough time. Since Canon is saying 64GB amounts to 160 min.
 
ive got a mix of 32gb extremes and the 64gb extreme pros....i tend to use the 64s more, as with my usb3 they dump super fast so ic an not have to worry about media too much. But, they were super expensive, and if i didnt have a kipro mini i never would have bought them.
 
What type of CF card readers do all of you use to offload your C300 footage from your CF cards?
My USB Sandisk CF card reader takes ages to download just a few small (20-30 sec) clips from my C300.
There must be something faster than this.
 
got my self the Transcend 400x 32GB , had to get it locally before the shipment of my Sandisk arrives, what a junk i must say! during the 20 mins non stop filming its stopped and shows errors like 15 times , i had to pause and repair and then again. regular 1080p footage no slow motion

so if anyone wants to save some money - Dont do it! sandisk is the best way to go!
 
The Hoodmans are guaranteed not to fail and one never has.....that being said, We have the biggest reality show producers here as clients and one of them (20+ shows) switched to the Hoodmans for the peace of mind it brought them (they've had others fail once in a while).

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com
 
I've used the Sandisk 32GBs 60mb/s cards in my C300 and XF300. I have never had an issue until recently - two of my oldest cards (abt 2 yrs) had an error which lead to me not being able to access any data on one of the cards. Subsequently now one of the cards cannot be read or initialised by camera or computer.

This is kinda what happened, for those interested:

OK, I shot two cards - Card 1 and Card 2. Most footage was on Card 1. I gave my cards directly to my client to do the transfer. It was the day after that I had the dreaded phone-call, expressing there may be a problem! My client was able to only get footage from Card 2, and only after much trouble. When they returned the cards to me, I was unable to get ANY footage from either.


When I checked them on my Mac, my first observation was that Card 1 had two extra files in it, which should not have been there - they were DCIM and MISC folders from my 5D! Now, I had used the card in my 5D in Sept, but had initialised the card in the camera - thus the data should have been wiped... So, one theory - was the card was not initialised properly - could this have lead to the problem? Well, it shouldn't have... but... AND Card 1 didn't have the Index file..?!? NOTE: during my shoot I constantly reviewed footage from both cards and the camera never exhibited any problems...


I put both cards back in the C300 to see if the camera would recognise/play them back. Card 1 wasn't recognised at all, and whilst Card 2 couldn't play back or record - the camera did recognise the card as a properly formatted card with data on it. It prompted me that there was an error with the card and asked me if I would like to recover it, which I agreed to do... (drum roll) But after that the card wouldnt work AT ALL - all data lost! It now seems completely corrupt and neither my Mac or my camera recognise it...


I then tried to initialise Card 1 - the camera did it fine. I have since run some tests and it seems OK.


So if Card 2 was at fault, why did we have problems with Card 1? My theory is because I allowed the last clip on Card 1 to span over to Card 2. And thus PERHAPS as there was an error with Card 2, it caused an error when Card 1 was writing its index file... Usually I avoid spanning clips, even though it should be fine as the cameras are designed to do this and I have experienced no problems with spanned clips before.

Coincidently I have been working on a TV series recently where we have been shooting on XF305s and C300s, using my client's CF cards, and we have experienced problems with one of their cards - with all data being lost from one card. Another card suddenly packed up during a shoot - becoming unreadable and the camera flagging that it needed initialising, but my client was able to transfer all footage from this card OK. Both problem cards have been taken out of circulation.

I am still a fan of Sandisk but its worrying that we have started to see problems - keen to know if anyone else has had any bad experiences.

Chris
 
anatusa said:
got my self the Transcend 400x 32GB , had to get it locally before the shipment of my Sandisk arrives, what a junk i must say! during the 20 mins non stop filming its stopped and shows errors like 15 times , i had to pause and repair and then again. regular 1080p footage no slow motion

so if anyone wants to save some money - Dont do it! sandisk is the best way to go!
Click to expand...

Well, there's both sides to every story I guess.

I've got several different brands and the only ones I've lost data from were Lexar (about 6 years ago) and Sandisk Extreme!!!

I have 14 x Transcend 400x 32GB cards and they've never missed a beat. Not once. Ever. The SanDisk Extreme card was replaced by Sandisk, but of course not the data!
 
I have 8 San Disk 32"s 60 mbs read speed. THese cards have been used a lot since I got them in May as I have been shooting on multiple long form projects. No Bumps no hitches. I did use a hoodie man a couple of times and notice that the clips were a little more saturated and contrasty than the San disk cards :-) The advantage to the Hoodie cards are the faster read speed than my current San disk cards. So if I am using my USB 3 Reader and backing up to my thunderbolt raid - offloads are really speedy with the hoodman cards. San Disk also makes some 90MB/S rated cards and they are cheaper than the Hoodmans.
 
You should, in general, buy new cards ever year because the fail rate does go up when the cards get older. Cards are cheap, memories are not. Better to get new cards ever year then to have a higher chance of card failing when using the older cards.
 
I have 3 64GB Sandisk Extreme (60 mb/s) and 3 Transcend 64GB cards. I first fill up my Sandisks, then if I need them the Transcends. I haven't had a failure with any of them. I don't bother with A/B recording. Sounds like maybe I should start.
 
Don't wanna jinx anybody, but I have 3 dead SanDisk 32Gb cards. I now run the SanDisk 16Gb.

Dunno why I think these should be any better, but the cost is a bit easier to swallow should they fail, both in terms of currency and lost footage.

CK
 
I use the Sandisk 90mb/s ie. 600X cards mostly 64GB and 32GB. I have a couple of Sandisk 32GB 60mb/s cards as well. The smaller cards of 16gb etc now I use for sound recording in my SD 702T as well as in the DSLR.

All my cards are backed up. I will not handover the card to a client before copying it myself. I use the Sandisk all in one charger. It is a USB 3 charger and is pretty fast. It downloads 64GB in just a few minutes.

I am surprised how a CF card is not initialised in C300. I never delete files from the CF card in the computer. First thing is to initialise before I start. I would suggest ChrisDTV to contact Sandisk in Singapore for helping in retrieving the footage.
 
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