SanDisk 8GB or 16GB compact flash memory card

SanDisk 8GB Extreme CompactFlash Memory Card is $38 w/ B&H and the 16 GB is $70. I'm usually always downloading directly after a shoot. So practical side is thinking get a few 8GB cards and never have all my eggs in one basket. Or just go with a couple 16 GB cards an relax a little.

Do you ever think about that when shopping for memory cards? Does anyone ever experience memory card failure?

I've never had a failure, but I have had a compatibility problem. I bought a 16 GB card and it seemed to work, but about a third of the files would be corrupt. I dropped back to 8 GB and had no problems. Just make sure your camera and card are compatiable.

I use 8Gb's on the 7D, I have never had a failure but with approx 300 shots per card if one were to fail that's an awful lot of images in the bin, 16Gb 600 images out the window, no thanks, especially as it only takes a couple of secs to change a card

I think I'm more likely to damage or lose a card in handling than have one fail, so a big card that stays in the camera seems safer to me.

I recently bought two 32GB cards... They won't work in my camera. The 8GB cards I have all work fine. I'm thinking the camera has some limitations on memory card size. I'm hoping my next camera will like these larger cards... meanwhile I use them as portable backup drives when traveling with my laptop.

Since about 2003 ive probably had about 5 cards fail. I can recall at the very least

-250MB
-512MB
-8 GB
-16 GB
-32 GB

The two largest were because i cracked the case i think - the other 3 just seemed to stop working

So.... while i love SD cards... use them for everything... they most definitely do fail.

chasrich wrote: I recently bought two 32GB cards... They won't work in my camera. The 8GB cards I have all work fine. I'm thinking the camera has some limitations on memory card size. I'm hoping my next camera will like these larger cards... meanwhile I use them as portable backup drives when traveling with my laptop.

Don't you have a 60D? I bought a 32GB card and it works fine in my XTi.
Ask someone else to try them out.

Baydream wrote:

chasrich wrote: I recently bought two 32GB cards... They won't work in my camera. The 8GB cards I have all work fine. I'm thinking the camera has some limitations on memory card size. I'm hoping my next camera will like these larger cards... meanwhile I use them as portable backup drives when traveling with my laptop.

Don't you have a 60D? I bought a 32GB card and it works fine in my XTi.
Ask someone else to try them out.

Thanks. I'll ask around. The cards work fine in other devices.

chasrich wrote:

Baydream wrote:

chasrich wrote: I recently bought two 32GB cards... They won't work in my camera. The 8GB cards I have all work fine. I'm thinking the camera has some limitations on memory card size. I'm hoping my next camera will like these larger cards... meanwhile I use them as portable backup drives when traveling with my laptop.

Don't you have a 60D? I bought a 32GB card and it works fine in my XTi.
Ask someone else to try them out.

Thanks. I'll ask around. The cards work fine in other devices.

My fingers slipped. It works in my XSi (circa 2008, my XT uses CF, duh). Does it give an error right away or when you try to format? Just curious.

chasrich wrote: I recently bought two 32GB cards... They won't work in my camera. The 8GB cards I have all work fine. I'm thinking the camera has some limitations on memory card size. I'm hoping my next camera will like these larger cards... meanwhile I use them as portable backup drives when traveling with my laptop.

Some cameras can not read certain memory cards. They are just not equiped to read HC cards. I had that issue a while back when digital cameras first came out, I bought a 4gig, camera couldn't see it.

Monti Leehsu wrote: SanDisk 8GB Extreme CompactFlash Memory Card is $38 w/ B&H and the 16 GB is $70. I'm usually always downloading directly after a shoot. So practical side is thinking get a few 8GB cards and never have all my eggs in one basket. Or just go with a couple 16 GB cards an relax a little.

Do you ever think about that when shopping for memory cards? Does anyone ever experience memory card failure?

Never had one failed, but I would go with the 8gb. How often do you think you would really fill up the 16?

Since 2004, and using dozens of Sandisk compact flash cards, I've had one problem. One of my oldest cards, a 1gb CF card, that I had long ago stopped using in my cameras, but used for temporary storage or moving files between computers, screwed up one photo (1/2 the photo was there, 1/2 was missing, no big deal as it was a copy). This was a card I'd been using to transfer files for over 5 years, and hadn't formatted in 3 or 4 years. After a quick format it seems to be working fine.

Memory is fairly cheap for the mid-sized cards. I buy new ones every year or so for my photography, and give the old ones away to my family for their cameras and digital photo frames. So far none of them have had any problems with my old memory cards either. It's worth spending the extra few bucks for a respected brand name card. Format in the camera periodically, and I think you'll be pretty safe.

I'd go with their 32gb extreme

Just ordered a couple 16's

Monti Leehsu wrote: Just ordered a couple 16's

Well now you have plenty of storage. I personally stay at 8gigs even though I have yet to have a single failure.