CF Compact Flash cards

[Kelly Langerak]

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

I'll test then post next week.

[Keith Moreau]

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!

[Marty Hudzik]

Originally Posted by Manus Sweeney

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.

[Alan Halfhill]

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.

[Keith Moreau]

Originally Posted by Marty Hudzik

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.

[Manus Sweeney]

Originally Posted by Marty Hudzik

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!

[Marty Hudzik]

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?

[Marty Hudzik]

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.

[David Jansen]

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.

[Régine Weinberg]

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

[Keith Moreau]

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.

[Tony Reidsma]

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.

[Fred Foronda]

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

[Seth Bloombaum]

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.

[Nigel Barker]

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.