Compact 'Trash' Card

[www.craigbattle.com]

Can someone please help me. I just jumped to digital, and purchased

a digitial rebel. It worked great for a week. After than I got some

corrupted data on the memory card a 30x 512mb Transcend compact

flash card. Then I got the ubiquitous 'error 02' SO, I took the card

out tried to delete, reformat; but nothing worked. SO, I returned

the card to the store I purches it from. They provided me with the

same make and model card. After using the card for the first day

(today) and uploading the images to my PC and then the PC locked up,

wouldn't read the card. I put the card in the camera; and got 'error

2' again. SO NOW I'M STUCK! Does it make that much of a differnce

if you get a 'name brand' top of the line compact flash card or

what? Am I doing something wrong PLEASE HELP ME. thanx.

[jimstrutz]

I doubt the camera knows a name brand flash card when it uses it. :)

 

Quality control might be better in some name brands, but they have to compete on price like everybody else, so I suspect there's not much difference. FWIW, I had a three month old SanDisk 512MB card go belly up last month. SanDisk very graciously, and fairly speedily, replaced it though.

[john_kim12]

There have been few known cases where one brand/model of compact flash card were incompatible with a specific camera. Not all compact flash cards are the same! Different brands also have different read and write speeds, even when both are advertised as 4x speed and whatnot. dpreview.com had a good chart on speed of various brand of compact flash cards. Don't know if they keep it up to date. Search dpreview and see if anything useful turns up on your combination.

[majid]

I used to have a Microtech 64MB CF card that would work with my Canon S100 and my laptop when running Windows 98, but caused errors with Windows 2000 and my Canon D30. I would get a refund and change brands.

[carl smith]

Try a different brand of card. If that doesn' fix it then the camera is having issues.

[www.craigbattle.com]

Thanks for your comments but I have a follow up. Aren't Compact flash cards supposed to be rock solid bullet proof solid state memory? I got a coolpix for my girl last year and her 128mb card is rock solid. We write, erase, whatever, never a problem, However due to the nature of the larger files on my digital rebel and the larger capacity of the compact flash card is there a greater chance of an error? Also, do most people delete the files on their card from the camera or from their PC via a card reader? Do you reformat the compact flash card or just delete the images? This just really seems odd to me. I think I'll get a refund and get a different brand. Lastly, are there any utilities or applications that people use for their compact flash cards? thanks for all of your help.

[tjavery]

I've had 100% success with various brands of compact flash cards in my Canon cameras (A60 & 300D). All I do is format the card in the camera (NOT in a PC card reader) after I fill it up and download all my pics.

 

However, I have run into trouble when using the CF card as a simple data storage disk and writing & reading files. After some time, the card becomes corrupt.

 

But for camera use- just remember to format it (IN CAMERA) after each time you've filled it up (remember to download and archive your pics first! :-)

 

-TJ

[scott_carlsson]

Try and stick with Sandisk Ultra II or Extreme series, or the 40x+ Lexar cards.

 

Reformat the card in the camera, not from the reader. Let the reformat "delete" all files

from card.

[Greg M]

I also had a Transcend 512MB 30X card that failed, but with a Powershot G5. After working several months it starting giving me the "CF error" and wouldn't record an image. I started using it in my Digital Rebel & haven't had a problem with it. Still, I don't resort to using it until after first filling up the two 1GB Sandisk cards I also have.

 

The "Canon" 30MB card that came with my G5 that I've never used was made by Sandisk.

[phule]

<< Aren't Compact flash cards supposed to be rock solid bullet proof solid state memory? >>

 

Sure. Does that mean the company that makes that brand has the quality control needed to ensure that? Probably not.

 

I always copy the contents of my cards to the HD and then format the card /in the camera/. I've never had a problem with CF.

[steven_clark]

Sure the hardware is rock-solid bulletproof, but the firmware is a program written just like any other, and if you cut corner's on that the hardware's not going to save your ass.

[Spearhead]

<i>Try and stick with Sandisk Ultra II or Extreme series, or the 40x+ Lexar cards.</i><p>

 

This is a huge waste of money with most cameras, and even in the cameras that take advantage of the extra speed, there are very few shooting situations that would use the extra speed. At the same time, there is no inherent compatibility advantage over these cards to any other cards, particularly the "standard" speed cards from the same manufacturers.

[john_kim12]

solid state technology itself is fairly stable, but I'm guessing majority of the errors occur when you are acutally accessing the data, reading and writing. As others have mentioned, formating the card, preferably in the camera you're using, seems to be the most stable thing to do.

 

As for the super fast cards, I'd stay away from Sandisk. They have a history of having some of the slower(but stable) cards. Even their Ultra II lines are slower than advertised according to dpreview. Lexar cards have been known to be fast and excellent overall. Kingston is also stable and fast, except for on one or two specific cameras.

 

Regarding Jeff's comment on the faster cards being a waste of money, it depends on what kind of camera you're using in what settings. A lot of consumer digital cameras can't write fast enough to take advantage of these fast cards, but there are plenty of pro/sumer ones that can. And if you're saving your files in RAW or TIFF mode instead of JPEG, and you want to be shooting your, what is it now with the digital SLRs, 5 fps, at maximum resolution, at 6 or even 8 megapixel, I'd spend the money on the faster cards. But if you're using it on a digital point and shoot, probably not. But as cameras come out with higher resolution and faster shooting speed, the faster cards will become more and more necessary. But as faster and larger things get, they also seems to get more unstable.

 

A 4GB hard drives from years ago typically lasted 10 years or more. But the new 300GB drives, you'd be lucky to use it for a year or two these days. Just to give an example of how faster and larger technologies are pushing the envelope just a bit too much.

[peter_phan]

I have two Transcend 512MB CF cards. I also have Viking, Simpletech, and Kingston CF cards. I have never had any problems with any of them on my 10D. And I don't baby my cards, either. Maybe you're just having some very very bad luck, or those Transcend cards came from a bad batch.

[eric bond]

Additionally, I would never format a card using a computer. Always use the camera's format feature. I also no longer erase (or cut/paste) using Windows Explorer. I have lost two separate cards using both methods above.

 

Another aspect may be that your card reader is introducing the problem. One way to maybe test this would be to use the camera's USB (gack) connection and upload that way. This might help eliminate a potential source of your problem.

[joe_zammarelli]

I use Lexar CF cards and a Lexar media reader (reads CF, Xd, & etc.) to save on battery life. All perform flawlessly. I will second a recommendation above; i.e. that you format the card in the camera. Theoretically it shouldn't matter, but each camera its own way of doing things, so I reformat after each download.

[k2photo]

I've had a set of 2 Lexar cards fry on me, both from the same batch number (printed on the side of the card), their replacements (same make and model, different batch number) have been working without issue for the last 6 months.

 

My recommendation is that if you are going to be taking 1GB of pictures on an outing, take four 256MB cards instead of one 1GB card. Bad things can and will happen regardless of brand. Better to lose a fraction of your pictures than all of them. This will also allow an assist or friend dump pictures to a laptop or portable hard-disk while you continue shooting should you be doing any type of event photography.

 

Also, be careful with MicroDrives, some are supposedly very good, but others like the Magistor drives are very unreliable, don't take shocks well, and output electromagnetic interference that can affect your image sensor.

 

Good luck and good shooting!

[k2photo]

As for 40x WA cards, as mentioned early, it does make a difference where large megapixels and speed is concerned. If you are shooting sports, weddings, or your nephew's birthday, it makes a difference. I hate losing shots because the buffer is full and the shutter won't release.

 

On the other hand, a landscape, architecture, or nature photographer might NEVER see the difference.

 

I can tell you personally I see a HUGE difference in my *ist D with from a Lexar 4x to a Lexar 40x WA card. For the price difference (about 10-15%), make sure your camera supports it and that it will benefit your shots.