I need CF cards for the Nikon D700

Which CF cards would you buy? They cost more than what it costs to get SD cards.

I don't have a D700, but I have a D3s(the D700 is basically a D3 sensor in a smaller/not pro grade body, and although the D3s has a somewhat different sensor it's the same resolution). At least by "modern" standards, it's not TOO demanding of card performance as even RAW files are relatively small.

 

At the moment, I have two 16gb Sandisk Ultra cards(silver label) in my D3s-one for RAW and one for JPEG. These cards are rated at 50mb/s, and I find them to generally be a pretty good value. I just checked, and at 9fps I was able to get a couple of separate 30 shot bursts before the buffer filled up. It then took 3-5 seconds for the buffer to clear completely.

 

I didn't check to see if a faster card made a difference-I have some 160mb/s cards, but mostly use them for higher resolution cameras and didn't feel like going out to the car to get my card wallet. I don't know if the camera can write fast enough to take advantage of it.

 

A quick check shows Sandisk Extreme cards(gold label, 120mb/s) at several major retailers at around $30 for 32gb. This seems like a pretty good value to me, and if I wanted to stock up on cards exclusively for a D700/D3(the latter of which at least theoretically can benefit from fast cards more so than the D700 due to its higher frame rate) it's what I'd buy. I do tend to buy 160mb/s cards just because even if I don't need the speed when I'm photographing, faster cards make life easier when I'm pulling 80mb RAW files from my D800 off of them.

 

Even if you pay more for CF cards, you can enjoy the fact that they're more durable than SD and nowhere near as easy to lose.

I just recently bought Transcend 16GB 1066x UDMA7 card. Here in Finland other options were Sandisk Ultra, Sandisk Extreme, Sandisk Extreme Pro and Lexar Professional 1066x. Ultra one would have been cheaper, but I often buy the second cheapest option, so I ended up with Transcend.

Slower (and cheaper) cards will do fine for ordinary shooting. If you need fast cards, then you have to pay for it.

 

Any kind of memory card, including CF, can -- and has been -- counterfeited and mislabeled* so it is a really good idea to buy them from an established and well-recommended vendor such as B&H or Adorama,

 

*i.e., 256K card labeled as 2GB or whatever.