133x CF card

[Alan Maughan]

Guys,

I currently have only one CF card, its a Kingston Elite Pro 133x. I seems to work well enough but Im now looking to buy another 2 x 16gb cards.

Are these cards of high enough quality to get the best quality video footage from the camera? Im not so bothered about transfer speeds in getting the footage into the computer, only video quality.

[James Strange]

Been using Kingston Elite Pro 133x 32gb ang 16gb for over a year, zero problems

[Bruce Foreman]

The media card affects video only in the regard that the card can fulfill it's claimed ratings and specs. What is recorded is digital ones and zeros and the card will either take those or not.

What matters is the reliability of the cards. Kingston media has not performed all that well in cameras taking SDHC cards, there have been reported problems with Canon and Nikon owners, Canon techs told one Canon T1i owner the Canon cameras can be "brand picky" and advised he switch to SanDisk Extreme III.

He did and his problems "went away".

It may be different in CF media but I won't trust in that.

So your video is going to be pretty much the same "quality" from brand to brand...

...If it records...

I use 8GB CF cards in my 7D, my style of working calls for "short takes" and 8GB doesn't "cramp my style" any. But I keep several ready to go. When I first got my 7D I ordered 2 at dang near $100 each but they were SanDisk Extreme IV 45MB/s UDMA and I never had a problem, corrupted file, or lost video with them.

The next one I ordered was their Extreme 60MB/s UDMA and this one is rated at 400x, now the price for these is $54 (at B&H) and I just ordered another.

The card specs (and how well it lives up to those) is important in that the card MUST KEEP UP WITH THE CAMERA! If it does not, and this happens with many "bargain brands", a buffer bar appears in the viewfinder and if this fills up the recording STOPS and cannot be restarted until the buffer has been written to the card.

So I pay the price, bite my lip, and roll on shooting. But with no fear the card is going to let me down.

Transfer speed to the computer may not matter but to the card it does.

[Chris Barcellos]

I have had two 16 gig and 2 8 gig Elite Pros for two years, shooting on my Canon 5 D. Not a glitch. I even run Magic Lantern stuff on them.

Recently someone on this site was getting rid of a bunch of them, and I bought another handful, for about $ 15 apiece, knowing how well they perform.

[Alan Maughan]

Thanks for your replies guys.

Ive had the Kingston card for about 18 months, it has never let me down and Ive never had problems with its write speed. I just wondered if different price cards would have any impact of footage quality.

Im a pro in a different field and I see all to often the makers recommending only the higher end products to work in conjunction with theirs, they seldom tell you which budget alternatives work well.

[Alan Maughan]

Guys,

I took the plunge and ordered two more of these cards, the price was £20.99 each.

On arrival this morning I was really disappointed to see that when using both cards I got an Err 22 message. My 7D would shoot video for a few seconds then stop, nothing was recorded to the card and a message suggesting I formatted the card appeared. On trying to format the card in the camera the Err 22 appeared. I was initially gutted and annoyed with myself for buying cheap media.

A search on Google about 7D Err 22 messages revealed that a firmware update to 1.2.5 could solve the problem. I was running 1.2.1 so ran the update.

Problem solved and Im one happy chappy again!

[Chris Barcellos]

So where did you buy ? With counterfeit stuff hanging out there, I would be careful about to good to be true deals. But it sounds like you solved the problems, so great.

[Alan Maughan]

I bought them from Memory Cards, Micro SD Cards, USB Memory Sticks, SD Cards, SDHC - Free Delivery

On trial one of the cards works fine, the other works fine so long as I dont let it run to the full 12 mins and shut itself of. If I do it freezes and the footage is lost.

The company has said to send it back for testing but since I rarely shoot 12mins Im not sure if its worth it.

[Chris Barcellos]

One day I was testing my T2i with the latest version of Magic Lantern. It included a variable bit rate adjustment, that I thought I would like to try. Not something I really aspired to have, but thought it would be a kick to see if it worked. I looked at an ad for the local Fry's, and I saw they had some cheap Class 10 16 gig cards. I was going to buy a 2 terabyte harddrive anyway, so I decided to pick up two of the cards too. I think they wer about $25, Centon was the brand name. I went down and bought two. Brought them home. One worked, the other only registered a single gig, and I couldn't format it or anything. I drove the 25 miles back to Fry's. Got in line, and showed them the card. It had come out of a clean new pack, not even one of their crappy return things. I commenced getting a tremendous hassle from first the clerk, then a second up, and finally the return manager. Ultimately they were really claiming I was trying to switch cards on them. I literally went hot....and demanded a replacement. Utlimately they finally replaced it, but I have avoided going back to that store with a passion.

Ultimately, the chips themselves really had no class 10 performannce. I had class 4s that had better performance. How Fry's gets away with selling something like that I don't know, but then when they sold me a bad chip, they didn't want to honor their obligation there either.

[Bruce Foreman]

I don't have a Fry's here, but we do have a Best Buy and I rarely go there except to look for bargain Blu-ray movies.

Your experience and Alan's is one reason I order my CF and SDHC media from B&H. I order SanDisk, pay the price, bite my lip and move on.

It's good that the firmware upgrade seems to have helped Alan's situation but the one card that still exhibits less than perfect performance underscores my contention that most of the media makers do not have the QC that SanDisk does.

When will that card fail in some other way and lose him video footage? It very well may someday.

[Lance Watts]

I have been using Kingston 133x 16GB cards for two years. None have failed me. I also use Patriot 266x 16gb Cards as well as an assortment of SanDisk cards. None of those have failed me either.

However, in my experience, the 133x cards are just barely fast enough. On rare occasions, the 7D buffer indicator will pop up when using these cards. And, once in a blue moon, recording will halt.

And while I have never experienced a card failure, I have grown so paranoid that I now rely heavily on 4GB cards - to minimize the damage when the inevitable failure occurs.

Truth be told, the flash media manufacturing industry is a shady business and relying on an established brand name does not guarantee the safety of your data. Gray market flash is everywhere. Test your cards before you employ them in the field and keep your fingers crossed.

[Daniel Weber]

I have 6 of the Kingston 133x cards and they all have failed. Every single one. They worked for about 6 months and then they would stop recording in the middle of clips.

I switched to Sandisk 400x cards which gave me some corrupted files so I have gone to the Transcend 400x cards and have not had any problems.

I would stay away from the Kingston cards at the 133x speed....

Daniel Weber

[Liam Hall]

Maybe you had a bad batch Daniel. Mine have worked flawlessly in every type of environment.

Does anyone know how long these cards are good for? Some of mine are two years old - at what point should they be retired from service?

[Daniel Weber]

Liam,

No I purchased on several occasions and not just one batch. Philip Bloom had recommended them and I found them to be a good value for the money. They worked fine for a while and I then started to have problems. Bloom said that he had the same issue and changed to the Transcend cards.

I think that the cards are just to slow for video. I would go with a minimum of 233x and I prefer 400x now.

Daniel Weber