Best CF Cards for 5D, 7D Movies
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 11:52PM I’ve been vocally recommending that people interested in shooting video with the Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 7D, and upcoming Canon 1D Mark IV, use UDMA, or “Extreme IV” Compact Flash (CF) cards. This was based on some hard-won personal experience — I had two nasty drop-outs (in the form of held frames) when I shot Chapter 12: After the Subway to Extreme III CF cards.
Since then I’ve gotten many replies and comments from people shooting with the far less-expensive Extreme III and 133x cards without incident.
Here’s one such response, from Will Backer, reprinted here with his permission:
Hey Stu,
First off, thanks so much for your continued support of the indie rebel community — I’m a big fan.
I wanted to just drop you a quick recommendation regarding the flash cards you use and recommend for shooting video on the 5Dmkii and the 7D.
I haven’t shot on the 7D, which I realize has a slightly higher data rate, but I have shot 8 commercials (about 20 hours of raw footage) on the 5D with the Kingston Elite Pro 32 GB 133x cards (about $75 each), and I have not had any issues whatsoever with speed or data security.
I see that you’re still recommending the 8GB Extreme IV’s, which are 1/4 the size and more expensive than the Kingston 133x 32GBs. I know you moved to these faster cards after losing data on the Extreme IIIs — which makes sense, but it seems the word around the net is the the Extreme III just didn’t play well with the 5Dmkii, and it isn’t necessarily a speed issue.
I bought 2 of the Kingston’s because I found people on cinema 5d successfully using them and I needed to shoot a lot in the field. I’ve since noticed that Phillip Bloom and others use and recommend these cards as well.
Obviously it’s better safe than sorry when it comes to quality media, but the price difference is so huge that you may wanna give slower cards a try. At least these Kingstons seem to work perfectly and offer a four-fold gain in storage capacity for your dollar.
Cheers,
-Will
Thanks Will. I’m cautiously changing my recommended cards on the 7D Cine store page and I’ll let you know if I have any issues with the Kingston card I just ordered!
Stu
This topic just doesn’t want to die. This came in from reader Sigismund S. Pikul. Conclusions? Some folks have great luck with the Kingstons, some not so much. One thing’s for sure—I’ve never had any problems with my UDMA cards.
Hey stu, i love your blog and have been following it for about a year now, I just wanted to point out my recent experiences with the Kingston 133x (32gb) card that you’ve put on the recommended list.
I picked it up a few weeks ago and already i’ve missed a few great shots due to the buffer filling and the card becoming busy. the most aggravating of which was this last weekend when I was in california shooting a concert film, with my card only about half full it got into a really nasty groove of only recording about half a second before the card would stall out, once it gets in that mood it usually takes a few MINUTES before the card starts acting normally again.
as a result, my camera angle missed a whole song, this wasn’t the first time its disappointed me, but it most certainly was the worst. it usually happens when I’ve been shooting for an extended period of time, which unfortunately is, well, how most of my shooting is.
i’m kicking myself in the pants for mis-placing my 8gb SanDisk 60mb/s UDMA card right now
keep up the great work!
Reader Comments (55)
i've had issues with my kingston 4gb card shooting in hi jpeg doing stills for sports in high burst mode using a canon 1dsmrk3. i'm reluctant to try any more kingston cards now that i also have a 7d and will be using the movie mode a lot. i ALWAYS format any card i use to the camera i'm shooting prior to starting any project. i will also state i have a variety of brands in my camera bag, as i was an early digital adopter and tended to buy cards that were on sale. write speed and buffer only became more of a factor when i got back into shooting sports and now i'm doing video. looks like i have to spend some $$$ on quality, fast cards to handle video without interuptions.
Hello,
I read all the comments here but I am still confused.
I want to buy a Canon 7D soon.
So would a Sandisk Extreme III 4GB 30mb/s CompactFlash be enough for HD 1080 video shooting and Raw/JPG stills???
I'm thinking of buying 4 or 5 of these then rather have 2 16GB.
Because of the costs and the fact that if 1 of my 16GB breaks down I only have 1 left. And if 1 of the 4GB breaks i still have 3-4 left.
Maybe I can get her a straight answer.
Thnaks
Peter
Hi.
I have managed to get an explicit and final response from canon on the issue of the importance of UDMA... (see below). Basically it is ONLY a buffering issue, the buffer will clear marginally quicker with than without UDMA, it will make NO DIFFERENCE to image quality or video quality under any circumstances and will only reduce heating of the cameras electronics by an insignificant (theoretical) amount.
(Questions 3 and 4 were regarding the possibility of a 'grip' style XLR input/phantom power adaptor, I figured I'd ask as it would be amazing for such a thing to exist, ideally a Juicedlink DT454 but in an official battery grip housing with not external cables needed. Dream on :)
________________________________________________________________
Thank you for contacting Canon. We are sorry to hear that you are having difficulty with your Canon product. With reference to your enquiry about the 5D-II, we have created ticket number 1144510.
With regard to questions 1 and 2 about the UDMA-function, I can say the following:
- The use of an UDMA-card does NOT create higher quality video. (This is not an analogue device.)
- The use of an UDMA-card causes the controller and card to handle all I/O themselves without the use of the camera's CPU. So yes, the camera may run a bit cooler, but it will be marginally. On the outside, you may not even feel the difference.
- Using an UDMA-card of the same maximum speed does not create too much of an advantage, but the camera will be a bit faster to react to input if the buffer is filled up.
About 3 and 4, I really cannot say anything because I do not have any information about this.
We hope this information is of use to you. If you have any other queries, or need any other information, please do not hesitate to reply directly to this email.
________________________________________________________________
I hope this clears some things up for those confused by the rumours.
Best
-Rohan
Hi,
Just today I was seeing a Canon support partner about the notorious "Err 02" I am getting on my 7D with Kingston ultimate 16GB 266x cards recently. They said the camera was fine, the cards were to blame. The error occurs when I stop the shoot, the orange light is on permanently, then the camera crashes with "Err 02, card not accessible". Sometimes I have to remove the battery before I can continue.
The odd thing is: I had no problems with the self same cards before I upgrade to firmware version 2.0.3. And I have no problems with my other, cheaper cards, namely:
Kingston elite pro 1GB 50X
maxflash 8GB 233x
SanDisk Ultry 8GB 30MB/s
The service technician said he had several reports of trouble with Kingston cards. What am I to believe now? I'm going to try SanDisk, grudgingly.
Henkki
I have an update to yesterday's post.
Meanwhile a Kingston support technician called me and suggested a low level formatting of the cards. I did, and if the error is still there, it is definitly much less frequent. Guess that's something worth trying if you have trouble with cards.
Also Kingston promised to replace the cards if I should still have trouble.
Henkki