Photogs: CF card write speeds

**L* M* <l*@sbcglobal.net>**

For you photogs out there, I recently took advantage of a CF card deal at
Frys.com. My only disappointment was that write speed is only about 60X
(speed was not advertised  should have been a clue). So I decided to do an
informal test.

Using my 6.3 GB Canon EOS 10D set on RAW format mode and continuous shutter,
I inserted each kind of card that I have and fired off 10 shots. I recorded
time to finish writing the last file to the CF card. Here are my results
sorted by times:

Fastest:
Lexar 1GB 4x  1 min 42 sec. (oldest card - cost $256 in 2002)
Transcend 1GB 80x  1 min 45 sec.
Dane-Elec 1GB 1x  1 min 56 sec.
Lexar Professional w/ Write Acceleration 2 GB 80X  1 min 56 sec. (cost $80
in 2005)
Slowest:
SanDisk Ultra II 2 GB 60x? - 1 min 56 sec. (cost $37.95 in Nov 2006)

So, by my calculation, my new cheap 60x cards are only about 15 percent
slower than my fastest, which was listed as a 4x card! The obvious trend is
downward pricing pressure. The surprise was write speeds  minimal
difference from fastest to slowest. You could also deduce that the most
expensive cards are fastest and the cheapest are the slowest, but that may
not hold up in a larger sample.

I suppose a professional sports shooter or other high speed type of work
would call for more thorough testing, but any card will work for flower
photography. I thought you might enjoy my little test.

Happy shooting,
Larry 

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