CF Card problems
 

I am just finishing up a two week shoot in Siberia with the Canon 7D and I am having problems with a couple of my CF cards. I am using the Kingston 32 gig 133x cards which have been highly rated.

One of the cards works fine, occasionally getting the buffer warning, but two of the others have been getting more frequent stops during recordings after a buffer warning comes on. It gets worse as the card gets full. I have a whole bunch of two second clips.

I am formatting the card in camera each time I shoot, so I am thinking that somehow the card has gone bad.

In looking for replacement 32 gig cards, I found the Lexar Professional UDMA 300x card for a reasonable price on Amazon. The Sandisk cards around around $170.

Has anyone used the Lexar 32 gig 300x card?

The Kingston cards are just under one year old, I can't remember what the warranty period on them is. Has anyone had to return a CF card?

Thanks,

Daniel Weber

Actually I just glanced at a few sites and the kingston has some bad reviews - on reliability.

I use Sandisk and some obscure make I bought in Tokyo - and for 12 months not one problem. BUT I never use 32G - only 16Gig cards as I think thats the safe bet.

I have been using two 533x 16GB cards from Delkin for the past 6 months with no problems. Having filmed dozens of hours of video I have experienced no dropped frames, no corrupt files, in fact I've had no issues at all. And, they are cheap - something like $50 each at Frys Electronics.

Having said all that, you have to figure that any manufacturer's cards will go bad at some point. It is best, therefore, to plan for the worst: use smaller cards to limit the possible data loss (I wouldn't go over 16GB which is about 45 minutes of 1080p video), backup immediately in the field when the card is full, keep multiple backups of all video.

Good luck!

I use 16 gig Sandisk cards and have had no problems. Seems to me that 32 gigs is pushing the limit, since Canon says that's the maximum size for the camera. I have one Transcend 133x and it's been fine as well. I always reformat the card in camera after uploading its contents. I don't know if that helps anything but it can't hurt. The only manufacturer that claims zero failures is Hoodman. Naturally you pay for that quality.

I've been using the 16gb Kingston 133x and i had to slowly replace them all (i had 4 of them) as they used to drive me mad everytime. Constant buffer filling and stop, in fact i've missed a few important moments (thank god i always have another camera running) because of this problem.
When talking about media cards, CHEAP is VERY EXPENSIVE always!

ps: i now have lexar 233x and no problem at all

Thanks for the feedback.

Looks like I might be going with 16 gig cards from now on. It sure was nice having 32 gigs to fill though. I have been going through about two cards a day.

I will look for some 16 gig Sandisk cards....

Daniel Weber

Read the specs carefully. The cards have to be UDMA, otherwise you could have trouble.

definitely your cards. They are not UDMA. Had the same problem. Go for the new sandisk 60 or 90mb/s UDMA. THe 60's are ok in price but well worth it.

I ordered two 32 gig Sandisk UDMA 60 mbs cards. I will be trying them out on some interview tomorrow morning.

I think the best deal is the Transcend CF cards - 16Gb are about $62 each. They are UDMA and rock solid.