50d vs 60d Buffer size and SD vs CompactFlash.

[steve_johnston9]

<p>Currently I need to buy a new camera, as I undertake some commercial work and require a backup. I currently shoot with a 500d. Despite it being a Rebel in general I have been happy with the performance. However one frustration I have is how quickly the buffer fills up and shops shooting. Buying Xtreme SD cards hasn’t seemed to help. I noticed that both the 50d and 60d have double the buffer size of the rebel.<br>

But am I correct in saying that CF is still much faster than SD, pound for pound. Ie. given the same spend on an SD card or Compact flash card ?<br>

7D is more money than I have to spend at the moment so isn’t an option. Also I know certain features where dropped from the latest version of the xxD series, and am away of the loss of these features.</p>

[phule]

<p>The camera's buffer is affected by card speed only when it comes to moving images from the buffer to the card. Buying a Xtreme SD card will not increase the buffer size and will not stop a camera from filling said buffer any more quickly if you're shooting at the maximum frame-rate. The path from image sensor to buffer is much, much faster than the path from buffer to card even with the fastest cards. The buffer is a specific limit in the camera. A faster card should allow images to move from the buffer to the card more quickly (YMMV) but not in any way that suddenly gets you more space in your buffer while you're bursting images.</p>

<p>It's a shame the Rob Galbraith CF/SD database is no longer updated as it was a good tool for just this sort of question.</p>

[David_Cavan]

<p>I can't give you empirical evidence, but anecdotally we have both a XTi (400d) and a 50D; and we use 4, 8 and 16gb cards somewhat interchangeably. We shoot a fair amount of auto racing events, using continuous shutter frequently. The 50D, with the same card, will shoot about double the shots before stopping up - we make sure to use it for long sweeping shots for instance, where you might need up to 30 shots to cover a corner. </p>

[bobatkins]

<p>For the 50D and 60D there's essentially no speed difference between a fast SD card and a fast CF card. Both are limited by the speed at which the camera can take and transfer images, not the speed at which the card is capable of writing. If you had a card that wrote instantly or at 10GB/sec, it still wouldn't increase the buffer size or make any difference to how fast you could shoot. When the camera is working as fast as it can, that's your limit (unless you have a really slow memory card).</p>

<p>The absolute fastest CF cards are currently faster than the fastest SD cards, but both are faster than either the 50D or 60D. In the mid speed range, it's probably true that CF cards of a given speed and capacity are a bit cheaper than similar SD cards, though probably not so much cheaper that I'd base my camera decision on which type of memory it used. Prices are dropping and speeds are going up on almost a daily basis.</p>

<p>If you want speed, I'd look at a used or a refurbished EOS 7D if you can spring for the extra bucks.</p>

<p> </p>

[Marcus Ian]

<p>The speed the camera can take and transfer images <em>is based</em> on it's ability to write. Once it writes the image to a card, it clears the buffer. the faster you can write to the card, the faster you can clear the buffer, <em>and the faster you can continue shooting</em>. While it is of course true that the pipeline can only carry data at a max rate, that is ~50% higher for the 50D than the 60D. (and of course even higher for the 7D) For the current generation of hardware, data throughput on CF is considerably faster than SD.</p>

<p> If the OP is considering the 50D and 60D, and the differentiating characteristic is the write speed, the 50D is the obvious choice. <em>Paired with UDMA cards it has a <strong>50%</strong> advantage in effective buffer capacity </em></p>

[steve_johnston9]

<p>Why would a 7D be faster than a 50D, my understanding is that the buffer size is around the same.</p>

[KenPapai]

<p>Everything about the 7D is faster than the 60D and 50D.</p>

<p>I.e., the 7D has dual DIGIC IV processors.<br>

The 7D's burst buffer is approx. 8 fps (the speed maintained for up to 126 JPG images (with UDMA card), 15 images for raw).</p>