Compact flash

[4BIKER2]

I've just brought a D300 and I need a 4 or 8 gig flash card to go with it, my question is which make offers the best compromise between price and speed, and do I really need a super fast card to allow the camera to function at its best. Your recommendations are welcome

[daft_biker]

I usually end up with Calumet CF cards rather than Sandisk...but maybe that's to be expected if you walk into a Calumet shop and ask for a CF card

They seem plenty fast enough for my 40D but as I don't use it for long burst on the highest frame rate I've maybe never needed a faster card. I suspect most new CF cards are fast enough for my needs as flash recycle times usually limit my shooting rate. Even if shooting bursts I'm only doing a second or two and the buffer in the camera can probably cope without the camera having to slow down because of the rate data can be written to the card.

I actually found card speed to be more of an issue on my old camera that could only fit a few raws in the internal buffer. I could press the button faster than it could write to the card but that doesn't seem to be an issue these days.

...so unless you are shooting long busts on a seriously quick camera I wouldn't worry too much

[OneTen]

I've found the Sandisk Extreme III cards to be fast enough for the 40D, I use 2GB cards and they're pretty cheap now. I think someone posted a link to MyMemory recently where these cards were £8.99, I've been paying £11.99 from Amazon.

[AlexMonro]

I've generally been quite happy with the price / performace level of Kingston, for example 4Gb 133x at Picstop - £12.99 . I've also recently tried a Transcend 8GB class 6 SDHC card in my K20D, and that seems OK, so maybe their CF cards are OK too - Transcend CF cards at 7dayshop .

I've also been happy with memory cards from Sandisk, Fuji & Olympus, but they tend to be a bit pricier.

[Nod]

With 4GB Extreme III Sandisks now being down to £19.99 and 8GB ones £39.99, I would go for them. (7dayshop.com prices)

[LargeFormat]

I use the Lexar x300 UDMA cards not just for any potential benefit in the camera but also for their fast download time when I finally get round to a FireWire 800 UDMA reader.

[4BIKER2]

Thanks for all the help I've decided to go With the 4GB Extreme III Sandisk as I may get a firewire reader later. Thanks again