Tip on using a Canon 20D with 16GB Compact Flash

[lemmingzappa]

Ok so I know the 20D is getting on a bit now, but I bought myself a 16GB Transcend CF card and the maximum size the 20D supports is 8GB. Here is the best way to use a 16GB card (and possibly larger cards) with this camera.

When using a 16GB card with the 20D, it may not recognise it at all. Either way you will need to format the card on your PC before use. If you're unable to do this via the built-in Windows tool you will need to install the 'HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool' and use the following settings when formatting:

FAT32
Default Allocation Size
Label = 'EOS_DIGITAL'

Once formatted create a folder in the root of the card named DCIM. You can now insert the card into your camera and it should recognise it as 14.9GB (or similar). The issue lies when you want to format the card on the camera itself. If you format the card via the 20D menu, it will automatically reduce the size of the partition to 8GB as the firmware doesn't support anything larger. Also if you select 'erase all' when deleting images, the camera will actually format the CF card instead of deleting every image (also forcing the partition size of 8GB).

My work around for this was to protect one of the images on the card via the 20D menu, that way you can select 'erase all' and it won't format the card. The only downside to this is that you are left with one image on the card at all times, but at least you can use the full 16GB!

In future you will just need to make sure you don't accidentally format the card via the 20D menu, otherwise you will reduce it to 8GB (although it is still usable). You can always format the card again via your PC at any time though.

Enjoy