Memory Card Question

ceejtank · Oct 7, 2011

Ok, so I originally posted a very similar question in the Canon forum here, however I am going to remove the Canon aspect of it because I am curious about the memory card portion.
My question is does the CF (compact flash) card offer an advantage over the SD cards? I am currently upgrading from a beginner canon model to the 7D, which everywhere I've found it for sale has it for sale with CF cards (the large bulky square ones). Since it's a more advanced camera, I would assume it's because theres an advantage. Hence my question.

Thanks for browsing!

dakkon76 · Oct 7, 2011

Hell yes! I have an XSi with a "fast" SD card which I upgraded to from a slower one. I get about a 5 shot burst before the buffer fills, regardless of whether I use the fast or slow card. If you look around, you'll see that the speed on a CF card really does make a difference on how many shots you can get in a burst.

DPReview did their 7D test with an extreme pro, I think a 400x (60mb/sec) card and got a 24 shot burst in RAW. I've read that with the Lexar 600x (which I'm ordering when I get my camera, after spending hours researching CF cards), that people aren't skipping a beat shooting continuous RAW at 8 frames/second. I find that hard to believe, but if it's more than 24 frames, I'll be happy

From researching it, the 16gb card should hold about 600 RAW images which is plenty for me... the 32gb version is over $200, so I'd rather start with a 16gb and add a second one later.

As an amendment to my post, I should point out the the 7D doesn't use an SD card, only a CF (compact flash) card. They are much bigger (physically) than an SD card and the 2 card types are not interchangable. If you're concerned with a longer burst of RAW images, then I'd say go with a smaller sized card (16gb instead of 32) and spend more getting a faster card.

Big Mike · Oct 7, 2011

I am currently upgrading from a beginner canon model to the 7D, which everywhere I've found it for sale has it for sale with SD cards (the large bulky square ones).

The "large, bulky square ones" are not SD cards, they are CF cards. SD vs CF is the type/shape of the card. In other words, you have to use CF cards for the 7D, because that is what will fit. You will not be able to use SD cards in the 7D.

As for the difference, besides the size & shape, they do exactly the same thing. There are faster/slower cards of either type. I think that the best CF cards are probably faster and have more capacity than SD cards.
CF cards are pretty robust. You can run them over with a car and put them through the washing machine. It's not recommended, of course, but they would probably be fine. An SD card is much thiner and feels like it could be snapped if you twist it too hard.