Future of CF Format in Nikon DSLRs??

[mike_halliwell]

<p>AFAIK CF's current speed limit is 160MB/s</p>

<p>SD UHS II is opening at 280MB/s</p>

<p>XQD seems available at 168 - 180 MB/s</p>

<p>What's the future format for Nikon DSLRs??</p>

[Dieter Schaefer]

<p>CFast: 500+MB/s http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=CFast&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ma&Top+Nav-Search=</p>

<p>XQD: dead on arrival</p>

<p>SD: not exactly my favorite - too small and too fragile (though I haven't lost one or broken one yet)</p>

<p>Would like to see CF/CFast only but am afraid that the future is SD - not the first time the better format looses out.</p>

[mike_halliwell]

<blockquote>

<p>CFast cards are not physically or electrically compatible with CompactFlash cards<br>

<br>

CFast cards use a female <a title="SATA" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SATA#Data">7-pin SATA data connector</a>, and a female 17-pin power connector</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Not sure that's even the same playing field is it??</p>

[bob_flood1]

<p>I post this more as a question than as an answer - I don't claim to know that my idea is a real issue, and I'm confining my assessment to shooting still pictures, not video.</p>

<p>I don't see any reason to move from a 160 mb/s write speed to 280 mb/s unless there is some use for the faster speed. Clearly, the write speed is unimportant to single frame shooting, so the value of the faster speed would have to be for continuous frame shooting. The faster speed would allow a camera to shoot at a higher frame rate or to shoot longer at its current frame rate before reaching the camera's buffer limitation, and a lot of people would welcome that. But can shutter mechanisms withstand the increase in mechanical wear and tear? It seems to me that the mirror mechanism would be at risk as much as the shutter itself. Perhaps the current crop of bodies with frames rates limited to around 5 per second are the manufacturer's way of keeping the shutter wear to a reasonable level. Perhaps the current shutter mechanisms are unreliable with increases in frame rates commensurate with the fastest cards today, or maybe more robust mechanisms can be made but would be too expensive for market realities.</p>

[Dieter Schaefer]

<p>Is there actually currently a camera that can even write at 160MB/s? Or is all that speed only available when transferring data to the computer - adequate reader and connections assumed?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Not sure that's even the same playing field is it??</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Didn't realize that CF and CFast aren't compatible - appears CFast is geared towards movie cameras. Any reason CFast couldn't be used in a DSLR? Too power-hungry? Or just plain too fast to be useful?</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p><em> But can shutter mechanisms withstand the increase in mechanical wear and tear? </em><br>

<em> </em><br>

Those cameras which support such frame rates (i.e. D4s) are designed to be use that way. The main reason for fast cards is that the pixel count of cameras has been rapidly increasing, so now the files are quite large. D810 lossless compressed NEF files are about 50MB per file (from what I have heard; I do not have that camera) so extended shooting at 5 fps (beyond the buffer) would require about 250MB/s for writing. I imagine there will be faster versions of the same resolution in the future, so there is some pressure to keep increasing the transfer speed. Fast cards are quite expensive and most of my cards are some years old and in the 60-95MB/s ball park. <br>

<br>

To me the main problem with SD is that the container of the card is fragile and easy to break. But it is the most widely used card type so it will remain at least for the time being. The main problem with CF is that it is a bit on the physically large side for compact cameras and so it is mainly used in higher end cameras, another problem is that some people have experienced broken pins in cameras / readers (I have not). XQD has neither of these problems: there are no pins to break and the shell is hard. However it is only used to my knowledge in the D4, D4s and one Sony video camera so far. Low sales volume means it is expensive. So some standardization effort from the camera manufacturers would be welcome.</p>

[Peter_in_PA]

<p>I have always thought those little pins were a really bad idea in the long run. Too many stories about bent pins. I'm a big fan of the SD-card for that matter. Fragile? Maybe. I've never broken one, been using them 10 years.</p>

[homer_arment1]

<p>I always worry much more about bending a pin with my CF cards than I do about breaking a SD card. As for as problems with cards, I've had many more corrupted files after shooting on SD cards than I have on CF cards. I really wouldn't be surprised to see CF cards pushed out of digital camera usage,</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>Strange how quickly things change in the digital world, and there doesn't seem to be any good technical reason why. Up until a few months ago the parallel connected CF card was still king of speed. Are they not putting the latest flash memory chips in CF cards anymore? Or is the serial nature of flash memory bottlenecked by a parallel interface?</p>

<p>I like the big chunky CF card; it's difficult to lose, easy to handle and capable of being legibly labelled. I'll be sad to see its passing, but come to think about it I've had more corruptions with CF cards than with SDs. Statistically that's probably as it should be, because I've been using CF cards far longer and more intensively than SD cards.</p>

<p>280MB/s? That sounds like sheer fantasy to me. Internal computer SATA mechanical disk transfer rarely gets anywhere near that, and I'd be surprised if even an SSD could clock that for any sustained length of time. Given that there's no current card to computer interface available rated for such a speed, it sounds like we're being sold an expensive bunch of meaningless figures.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>CF cards have a built-in controller, whereas the controller for SC cards is external. The result is fewer (and more robust) connectors, faster transfer and lower cost per GB. In most respects, memory technology for SD cards has surpassed that of CF.</p>

<p>I was skeptical about the small size and potential fragility of SD cards, but so far that fear has proven unwarranted. The Nikon D4 takes one of each, and many miniature cameras, including the Leica M9 and M240, take a single SD card. A case that would hold four CF cards has a capacity for 12 SD cards in the same space, at half the cost per GB for comparable transfer speeds.</p>

[eric_arnold]

<p>i'm with RJ on this one. CF cards feel better in the hand. i never liked SD cards' small size and fragility.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>SD cards are a bit too small and fiddly, but I never quite liked the pins of CF either. Haven't had problems with any format so far, probably the worst I've used was SmartMedia.<br>

For nearly all interfaces, parallel conenction made way, or are making way for serial ones (USB, SATA, Thunderbolt, PCI-Express). Making high-speed parallel connections grows more complex as speed increases (to keep signals in sync) and hence it tends to drive up cost and physical space. In that sense, I think SD has more future ahead of itself than CF has. But as Ilkka said, it would be very nice if camera makers would set a decent new standard together. There is little wrong with XQD by what I see from it, apart from the fact that hardly anyone uses it; but if even a D800 already has SD as a second slot, it seems also the support from Nikon is more than half-hearted.</p>

[dave_redmann]

<p>I've bent a pin in a CF card <em>reader</em>, but the cards themselves are female and therefore presumably more robust. Also, CF cards are a bit easier to grasp. But I've never had a physical break or fatal error in any SD card, including those that survived a trip through the clothes washer and dryer. They're fine, and they're it. I can't see any format displacing them in the near future; the next step is probably, IMO, devices having a ton of internal memory and fast near-field communications to transfer data.</p>

<p>For the record, I've used CF, SD, Micro SD, and XD cards in a variety of cameras and other devices, and with a variety of dedicated card readers and in-build ones in computers. The only ones I find really irritating to use are Micro SD--just too physically small to handle reasonably well.</p>

 

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>SFHD cards are completely sealed, with no pin sockets. I've had two CF cards go through the laundry with no ill effects, but I was probably lucky. I like the tactile feel of CF cards, and the guides in my cameras make it nearly impossible to bend a pin. There's always a chance that pocket lint or dirt will jam in the socket and bend a pin, however. The exposed pins of an SF card may make it more vulnerable to static discharge. I've been lucky so far.</p>

[rrroger]

<p>Cfast is the way to go and it won't be long before all DSLRs can shoot 4k Video.<br>

However, I fear that mico SD is the actual future for most cameras.<br>

The trend is to make everything smaller (GoPro) and lighter.<br>

Too small to break, we will be loosing them instead,<br>

and us with dimming eyesight will need a magnifier with light to find them.<br>

Maybe when they become even smaller they will have a GPS (locater chip) in them?</p>