I just read that even though you can use a 32 gig card all you can get is a max of 4 gigs or 12 minutes because of the file system, what is everyone's experience with this issue

Yes, there's a 12 minute (approximate) limit-it is all over the documentation etc.

You can only record 4GB in a single file, but you can record as many files as you can fit on the card.

This used to be a HUGE issue before we had manual control, since it took time to trick the camera into the desired settings. Now, with manual settings, you can just hit record again after you hit the ~12minute, 4GB limit.

My recommendation to people who need to capture longer recordings is to use a separate audio recorder, so your audio is continuous, and to have some B-roll that you can use to mask the video drop out. If that's not good enough, get a different camera. The 5D2 isn't the right solution if you need very long takes with no gaps.

So anyone knows if the Kingston 133x 32GB can handle video and an occasional RAW still at the same time, or do I need their Ultimate 266x for that..?

-- peer

I use the 16 gig Kingston Pro Elite, no problems, from Frys. I ve stuck with that level. In our testing of Magic Lantern, it seems like issue start arising with various 32's and I recall reports of trouble on one the Knigston. With Magic Lantern, issue was with wait times for loading the Magic Lantern software from the CF card. Problem was eliminated y a pause inserted by Trammel Hudson. What that means with regular shooting is your best guess. The 45 minutes per card on 16's has been fine for me, so I didn't go to 32's

I've been using Extreme III cards. no probs with stills - but HEAPS of stuttering/pausing on video - mainly with panning. It seemed like the camera was wanting to 'buffer' somehow when too much info was trying to be recorded. (please correct me if this is technically impossible) - however, I layout the cash for an extreme IV 16GB, and have noticed more smoother panning. - still testing though.

any thoughts if I'm on the right track anyone?

i finally ordered a kingston 32 gig, 133, haven't seen any issues yet, I did get a fast reader tho, 480 mbs, loadiing files very quick,

Copied here for relevance from our 5D Mk. II forum

B&H has the Extreme III 30mb/s for $89.95 with rebates-- $20 back for one, $50 back for two, $90 back for three.

FYI: Lexars have a sleep feature, which can cost a shot if waiting and shooting overlap (as noted by a reviewer working in Iraq).

B&H has the Extreme III 30mb/s for $89.95 with rebates-- $20 back for one, $50 back for two, $90 back for three.

FYI: Lexars have a sleep feature, which can cost a shot if waiting and shooting overlap (as noted by a reviewer working in Iraq).

Sleep? Tell me more about it.

I'm getting a 7D but I don't know what card to get.

I was thinking about the Lexar | 8GB Professional 233x CompactFlash Card | LCF8GBDRBNA233 (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=workaround.jsp&A=details&Q=&sku=585931&is=REG) UDMA, but after that I may consider another brand.

I just got 2 Kingston Elite Pro 32 GB 133x CompactFlash Memory Card CF/32GB-S2 for $75 each from Amazon. I had been using a Sandisk Extreme III 30MB/Second, I guess the recommended 'fast' card.

The Sandisk is faster if you shoot rapid RAW 18MB still you notice it doesn't stop. The Kingston is slower but in reality it's the only time you'd notice it. I don't notice it at all on video, no buffer filling up indicators or anything. And I guess about 1/3 the price of the Sandisk.

I guess if you have UDMA Firewire reader (I don't) and shoot rapid RAW then get the UDMA cards, but if you want lots of video time (and lots of room for normally shot stills) I see the Kingston, so far, as a really good deal.

Hey guys,
I'm about to buy a Canon 7D.
Which kind of memory cards do you advice and of what size ?
Lexar ? Sandisk ?
I just buy the 7D for video purposes.

I just got 2 Kingston Elite Pro 32 GB 133x CompactFlash Memory Card CF/32GB-S2 for $75 each from Amazon. I had been using a Sandisk Extreme III 30MB/Second, I guess the recommended 'fast' card.

Is this the one? I need more cards.
Amazon.com: Kingston Elite Pro 32 GB 133x CompactFlash Memory Card CF/32GB-S2: Electronics (http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-CompactFlash-Memory-CF-32GB-S2/dp/B001ROVLX8/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top)

Yes, that's the cards I got. No troubles so far. The only trouble I had was the other day when I had my 16MB Extreme III 30MBS run out of space during an interview and I forgot to bring along the Kingston 32GB. So it really pointed out the usefulness of a larger card like the Kingston.

Hmmm.. I'm considering purchasing this cam (Canon 7D) however, I'm concerned by all the reports of 'errors' throughout this forumn post.

Errors are not really something that can be afforded if I'm doing a wedding shoot for instance. It doesn't appear that anything I've read in here suggests there is a 'perfect' virtually 100% error free card. Is that the case?

Jon

Keith, can the Kingston 32GB handle 8fps shooting JPEGs?

im now in spain on a shoot and have had the 32gb elite pro buffer fill up once and stop shooting..

for the most part im still happy with it though..

In my search for a good card at a reasonable price I came across this:
Lexar – Compact Flash Memory Cards (http://www.lexar.com/digfilm/cf_pro_300x.html)

Good reviews of this unit from many enthusiasts using the 7D and 5DMII. I can't find a 32gb version, but 16Gb should be sufficient I would think for most uses.

Jon

Keith, can the Kingston 32GB handle 8fps shooting JPEGs?

I just fired off about a minute of full sized JPGs at high speed 8fps with the kingston, didn't seem to slow down.

I'm sticking SanDisk although after I initially overbought a 16GB 60Mbps I've switched to 32GB 30Mbps. You can get a 3 pack for $300 after a $200 rebate:

3XSDCFX3032GA31 SanDisk 32 GB Extreme III Compact Flash Memory Card - Pack of 3 (http://www.adorama.com/IDSCFE332G3X.html)

Happy trails, Michael

Finally!

I am getting my 7D early next week, just ordered it today.

Now to start getting bigger and faster CF cards. I just checked with New Egg. They have some but I was wondering if anyone knows of some real good deals that is still quality cards.

Like 16GB or 32GB with 233x or so.

Thanks.

Check it out here.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-7d-hd/356849-cf-compact-flash-cards.html

I'm using the Sandisk Extreme III 30MBs cards with no issues at all. They've dropped in price at Adorama, around $70 for 16 gigs. Be careful, though, because there are Extreme III cards that are not UDMA. If it says 30MBs on the front, it's UDMA. I also bought a Transcend 133x when I needed more and couldn't find the Sandisk and have had no problems with it either. Some of the cards, like the Sandisk and Transcend are UDMA but don't say it on the cards. If you go to their websites you can find out what is and what is not.

Great help.

Anyone know what UDMA stands for?

I second the 30mb/s Sandisk Extreme III's; works really well and really fast with my 7D. There are Sandisk rebates available when you buy from an official dealer of Sandisk, like BH or Adorama. So they can end up being awfully cheap, the more you buy. I think they're a great balance between price and speed. BH is out of a lot of the sizes of the IIIs but Adorama is still selling them, making room for the IVs, I imagine.

Does anyone have an opinion on these?
Transcend 16 GB from NewEgg for $56 Newegg.com - Transcend 16GB Compact Flash (CF) Flash Card Model TS16GCF133 - Flash Memory (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208337)

or

RiData for $46 Newegg.com - RiDATA Lightning Series 16GB Compact Flash (CF) Flash Card Model RDCF16G-233X-LIG - Flash Memory (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820183224)

Great help.

Anyone know what UDMA stands for?

Ultra Direct Memory Access

Check it out here.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-7d-hd/356849-cf-compact-flash-cards.htmlThreads now merged.

I will ask again....

Does anyone have an opinion on these?
Transcend 16 GB from NewEgg for $56 Newegg.com - Transcend 16GB Compact Flash (CF) Flash Card Model TS16GCF133 - Flash Memory (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208337)

or

RiData for $46 Newegg.com - RiDATA Lightning Series 16GB Compact Flash (CF) Flash Card Model RDCF16G-233X-LIG - Flash Memory (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820183224)

RE the Kingston 32GB Elite Pro - recording has stopped due to the buffer filling up quite a few times now.. I think i will be buying something faster and keeping it as an emergency backup..

Manus,

Wow, I use the Kingstons all the time and never had a problem in video. In still mode if you're in 8FPS RAW there might be a backup, but never in video, even while shooting continuously.

Under what circumstances did these buffer full problems occur? Is it possible your Kingston is fragmenented and needs to be reformatted so the files get written contiguously?

Hi Keith..

Its happened at both 50 and 25fps.. one of the cases was shooting out the window of a moving car at 50fps which i can understand could be a little heavy for processing but other times were reasonably static at 25fps..

Ive been in touch with Kingston but wasnt really impressed with their offer of replacement.. (sending back to uk at my expense and having to wait for a new one to be sent)..

Ive only been using it for a short time and only with the 7d so i dont know if reformatting will do anything to help but i can try..

Cheers,
Manus

Anybody tried this A-Data 533 CF?
A-DATA Technology (http://www.adata-group.com/en/product_show.php?ProductNo=13040058)

It is UDMA, etc. I bought 32Gb one yesterday, but did not open it since it was the last one and I just wanted to have it if it is any good. But no reviews so far.

if it's udma, it should work fine

sandisk doesn't list UDMA because common standards don't benefit their marketing. Some older Extreme III are not UDMA. The newer extreme III with 30mb/s text are UDMA.
But all other cards should list UDMA if they are UDMA.

"Good" for video recording means never hits buffer. It's not like still photography where the range of speed matters. Faster cards may write to the computer faster. So in an intense workflow faster cards may matter. But not for recording.

UDMA apparently matters as it allows the card and camera communicate better. Specifically I believe it allows the card to talk to the camera during a write. UDMA cards are not necessarily faster in a huge write. Just better coordination.

Does anyone know what UDMA level the canon uses? I've seen cards listed as UDMA level 4, level 5 and level 6.. Some of the cheaper cards are only Level 0 to 4 and I'm wondering if these are good enough..

The 7D accepts up to UDMA 6

JS

I just bought 4 of these from B&H for my 7D for shooting weddings.

Does anyone use these for weddings? Will one 16gb card last for an hour long ceremony at 1080p 30P?

SAUCF16GB (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=SAUCF16GB&N=0&InitialSearch=yes)

I'll test then post next week.

I use a couple of 32 GB cards and one 16. At the 7D codec rate they will up at about 16GB per hour. However you can only record a clip of about 12-15 minutes long at a time, then the 7D stops recording. So you have to remember to restart the 7D often, which is inconvenient.

Some people mention this is a limitation of the FAT32 file system, and it's true that a file of only 4GB can be written to the card at a time, however, all kinds of camcorders use the same type of cards/filesystem and just start writing a new file a frame after the last file ended, and when you put the files together in your editor, it's seamless.

Well, that's not going to be necessary with the 7D, because you won't be able to stop and start the video recording instantaneously, so you'll need an opportune moment to stop and start the 7D. This is why it's not good for long events, like interviews, where you really don't have time to stop and start.

Hopefully there will be a 'magic lantern' update sometime in the future that will address this. Along with the overheating issue this 12-15 minute clip limit is my main beef with the 7D. Other than that I LOVE IT!

Hi Keith..

Its happened at both 50 and 25fps.. one of the cases was shooting out the window of a moving car at 50fps which i can understand could be a little heavy for processing but other times were reasonably static at 25fps..

Ive been in touch with Kingston but wasnt really impressed with their offer of replacement.. (sending back to uk at my expense and having to wait for a new one to be sent)..

Ive only been using it for a short time and only with the 7d so i dont know if reformatting will do anything to help but i can try..

Cheers,
Manus

Any further developments regarding this card? I have a Kingston 16GB 266x Ultimate from Bh Photo and it stops due to buffer filling up fequently. Not all the time but 1-2 times per every format. It is frustrating and gives me a completely negative vibe about using the 7d for anything important. I do not currently have any other cards to test against....but based on speed this thing should be fine. In fact I see many of you having no issues at all with 133x cards so a 266x card should be overkill.

I used 32gig 133x Kingston Elite Pro with no problems so far. I have even used a 120x card and a RED 8gig card as well.

Any further developments regarding this card? I have a Kingston 16GB 266x Ultimate from Bh Photo and it stops due to buffer filling up fequently. Not all the time but 1-2 times per every format. It is frustrating and gives me a completely negative vibe about using the 7d for anything important. I do not currently have any other cards to test against....but based on speed this thing should be fine. In fact I see many of you having no issues at all with 133x cards so a 266x card should be overkill.

Marty, I have 2 Kingston 32GB 133x Elite Pro cards and I've never, ever had it stop and I've shot hundreds of hours now. I only remember seeing the buffer filling icon twice in all the usage. Seems like the 266x should be faster but maybe there's an incompatibility. All I know is the 2 133x cards work fine and are great deal. The minute I'd get problems like you're having I'd get another card. The 7D has problems, like the 12 minute limit, the overheating warning, no Magic Lantern or manual audio, but as far as recording to compactflash, that part has been reliable.

Any further developments regarding this card?

Since then i've been formatting the card each time in camera and so far so good in several months havent seen the dreaded buffer again!

Well darnit! I have been doing the same thing and I still get fairly frequent buffer stops with my card. I am going to have to buy another card and make sure that it is not my particular 7D. It sure would be nice to shoot and not have this nagging feeling that the clip is going to stop anytime.

By the way, for me, this usually happens pretty quick....like right after I start a clip it fills up fast and stops. I just realized that if it makes it past 3-4 seconds it never seems to stop....I think. Does this help me troubleshoot the problem in any way?

JUst got a KIngston Elite Pro 32GB card this morning. It is only rated at 133x but many of you are reporting no issues with it so I figured I'd give it a shot. I fired up the unit, formatted this card and proceeded to stress test the thing. Initially I started and stopped filming a dozen or so times with no sign of the buffer, but that doesn;t prove much as even my other card could do this most of the time. So I just hit record and set it on my desk and let it roll. Each time it reached the end of the clip, I'd hit record again. I did this about 4 times so almost 48 minutes of non stop shooting when I noticed the camera was overheating! Ok....so 48 minutes of non-stop shooting this might be normal right?

IRonically, i was filming into the dark area of my office and the individual takes were actually lasting 13:40 . I guess the H.264 encoder was not having to store as many bits since the video was light on information, thus allowing a longer run time. JUst thought I would add that.

So....I have not gotten any great conclusions from my test....yet. But is the camera overheating in this scenario I described probably a normal thing? It has never overheated before but then I never ran it like this.

Thanks a million guys.

I also use the Kingston Elite Pro 32GB card with the 7D. It also has the tendency of filling up it's buffer on the first take or two. After that, it seems fine. I was shooting some interviews last night and missed the first comment of the first interview because of this. Fortunately I had two other cameras rolling. The rest of the interviews had no problems; I stopped and restarted several times without seeing the buffer again. I reformat before any serious shoot so that's not the issue. I too am hoping it's a faulty card as opposed to anything being wrong with the camera.

only to tell u
if a 7d or 5d would seamless restart
Canon would have a dramatic sales drop with camcorders
so still magic lantern has not done the trick

I have a 7D and a 5D and have only experienced the buffer filling icon a few times and never lost recordings using the Kingston 32GB 133x elite with dozens of hours recorded.

I have a few 32 gig 266 cards and I find that if I try to start recording too soon after stopping, the card will basically say "Hold on dork, you just stopped recording and I have to save the stuff you just recorded." And it will make me wait a second or two before I start again.

Shooting dslr 7d. I already got 2 transcend cards. One is 400x 32 gb(blue). The other is 600x 32 gb (gold). Looking to add more 32gb but I think the gold is overkill fornhd video. Should i get the 400x or try the 133x???

Thanks

That's entirely up to how you value speed of transfer to your editing computer. The 133x, if it's a good one, should be fine in the camera, but will take 3 times as long as the 400x to transfer your footage.

For some people that's a major issue, for others it matters not at all.

I have a couple of 16GB 133X Transcend cards that I bought with my first 5D2 nearly four years ago & they have worked flawlessly. However I now normally use Transcend 32GB 400X cards for the same reason that Seth pointed out that they unload so much faster.