Camera Labs

Which card should I get for my 40D? (which I will purchase soon)

They cost both around 40€, so will there actually be a speed difference? Or should I go for the III 8GB one?

thanks in advance!

What camera do you have? If you are shooting high speed continuous shots, you might want the faster card. If not, you should be fine with the Extreme III.

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Nikon D700 | 20mm f2.8 | 28mm f2.8 | 50mm f1.8 | 70-300 f4-5.6 | SB800 | flickr | serial photography

I have 2 Sandisk Extreme III 4 Gb CF Cards for my 40D and they cope very well even when shooting at 6.5fps and can be bought here http://www.play.com/ for £17.99/€25.49 with free delivery.

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Roy
EOS 350D, 40D + BG-E2N, EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM, EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM, EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM, 430 EX Speedlite




My Fotopic

that question to me is a no brainer:
2x 4GB. I would never use just one big card. just imagine it breaks or you lose it, you´d lose a lot of data.

I like to change cards for different locations on a big (day)trip as well.

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40D, 17-85mm

I guess I will go with the 8GB one then! thanks a lot! Cant wait to get started making pictures!

I agree - go with the Extreme III. You wont notice the difference in camera and the Extreme IV would only give you faster PC transfer speeds.

Mark

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Canon EOS 40D / EF-S 17-85mm IS / EF 50mm f/1.8 / My Flickr

And, you'll need super-sandisk firewire transfer things to archive anything near what the card is capable of anyway

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Canon 40D | Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM | Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II | Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM | Canon BG-E2N | Canon Speedlite 580EXII |

I agree. Cards fail. Not all cards, and not very often. But if it happens, then rather have 4x2gb and loose 2gb of pictures, than have it all crammed on one 8gb and loose it all.
But as said, there's a very little chance of it happening.

PS. You can only use play to buy electronics in UK (Including those cards) which a lot of us don't do.
But thanks for the link anyways Defiance

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Sonyian?

My Flickr - Comments very welcome
Gear: a200, Sony 18-70 3.5-5.6 DT, Minolta 50 1.7 AF, Lowepro TLZ Mini, GorillaPod SLR Zoom
Saving for Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX HSM Macro II (50%)

Can the Canon 40D make use of the speed of the Extreme IV? If not then the III will do just as well at much lower cost. I started with 2 and 4 GB IV cards, but then got a 16 GB III. I can't tell any speed difference with my equipment meaning I wasted money on the speed of the smaller cards. That or I can use it as an excuse to upgrade...

I never got the failing argument for smaller cards though. To me any lost images are going to be really annoying, but the chances of any card failing between taking a photo and downloading are so small it's not something to worry about. So I'd take the convenience of a bigger card than lots of small ones.

If they weren't practically worthless, I'd sell my 2 GB cards and get some more 8 or 16 GB ones. I've never managed to fill the 16 GB yet, but did manage to go over half once.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Go for the III. You will not see any meaningful speed difference.
As toI have always had the largest available cards in my camera, never carried around any 2nd cards and thus never lost a second card
Meaning: if you buy a Sandisk card and you put it into your camera and never take it out there is zero risk that it will get lost (unless you lose the camera) and almost zero risk that it will get broken. It's much easier to lose a single card outside the camera or to break it by pulling/pushing it out/in
And as a natural precaution download your images as soon as a computer is near

The only time I ever lost images was my first and last try to use a Transcend 4GB SD (not SD-HC) card in my D80 Never ever try this!

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

Good point Thomas.



Though theres still the chance for the card to fail. They may be saved by the Sandisk software, but then if you're out on shoot and don't have any backups - your wasted.
It happened for a friend of mine at school once. He only took with him one 8gb card. One hour into the shoot, he's card failed. He managed to save the images, but if it werent' because i took a backup card (my fathers old 1gb 20x or something.. told ya it was old ) he could borrow - he would've been screwed.

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Sonyian?

My Flickr - Comments very welcome
Gear: a200, Sony 18-70 3.5-5.6 DT, Minolta 50 1.7 AF, Lowepro TLZ Mini, GorillaPod SLR Zoom
Saving for Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX HSM Macro II (50%)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the Extreme IV cards are UDMA compatible. UDMA compatible cards are basically super-fast...

As far as I'm concerned, Canon 50D is UDMA compatible... the 40D is not. That means that you'll probably get the same speed out of the IV as you would out of a III on a Canon 40D.

That taken into consideration, you will probably save a bit more if you buy the Extreme III... and get the same speed...

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Canon EOS 50D | Canon 28-135mm | Lowepro Flipside 300

i just purchased a 8gig Lexar 300x speed compact flash card from best buy here in the states. it was $102.00 but lexar is offering a $40.00 mail in rebate until january 15th.

its not my only card, i have other slower cards as well. Im about to go try it out this afternoon and see if there is a difference. I also don't know if my sony Alpha A200 is UDMA capable, but i do plan on getting UDMA card reader for my laptop's PCI slot in the future.

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Sony Alpha A200, Sony 18-70mm, Sony 75-300mm, Minolta 50mm 1.7f, Minolta 28-80mm w/ macro mode, LowePro Flipside300

I use an old dinosaur from 2002 for a computer. Okay, maybe it's not a dinosaur, because I upgraded the RAM, OS, and tons of other stuff on it... But anyways, the point is that a UDMA card would be pretty useless for someone like me who plans to own a camera that isn't UDMA compatible and has an old computer that wouldn't be able to transfer the data as quick as the card is capable of. Besides, Extreme III is quick enough for me...

But you know, we live in the age of instant gratification!

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Canon EOS 50D | Canon 28-135mm | Lowepro Flipside 300