What are Compact Flash Memory Cards? Many Canon and Nikon SLR cameras and high-end professional cameras use Compact Flash cards or CF cards as the Canon 5D MKII and MKIII, D700, 7D and Nikon D300s, D800 and many other. Some allow you to use only one CF card, others have two compartments, one for CF and one for SD cards (eg. Canon 1D Mark IV, Nikon D300s, D800). CF cards are generally better performing (with some exceptions) than SD cards, this is why they are chosen by professional photographers or those who make a certain type of photography (using continuous shots) or video at very high resolutions, and are generally slightly more expensive than SD cards. CF cards are also used by some videocameras, and in digital audio.
This article was updated in July 2018.
How can compact flash memory cards be classified?
On every CF card you can find a multiplicative parameter compared to a standard reading speed of 150KB/s (the original speed of the first CD-Rom). Eg. a card listed as 400X can read up to 400 x 150 = 60MB / s. For clarity, in the list of CF cards we will insert both the value in MB/s and the multiplication parameter of each card.
What does UDMA7 stand for? UDMA 7, which stands for Ultra Direct Access Mode 7, is the most recent transfer mode of UDMA interface. UDMA 7 allows a maximum transfer rate of 167MB/sec . This can be compared to the previous UDMA mode, UDMA 6, which allowed transfer rate up to 133MB/sec. Essentially UDMA7 cards are the fastest at the moment (except the CFast 2.0 that have a different architecture and can reach 500MB/s). Most Canon and Nikon supports UDMA7, if you can update the firmware . A UDMA7 card can also be used on specific older devices, but it could reach speeds below its potential.
-----Original Message-----
From: Lea Murphy <lea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: PhotoForum educational network <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thu, Feb 28, 2019 4:38 pm
Subject: Re: file transfer question
From: Lea Murphy <lea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: PhotoForum educational network <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thu, Feb 28, 2019 4:38 pm
Subject: Re: file transfer question
I wasn’t clear on a couple of things when I asked my question.
I download from a card reader to an internal hard drive via Firewire 800; I don’t download directly from the camera.
The receiving hard drive is 7200RPM.
I do not convert to DNG, I do shoot full RAW.
Thanks for the input so far, I appreciate it.
Lea
On Feb 28, 2019, at 11:25 AM, Randy Little <randyslittle@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Depends. How fast is the hard drive? Also depends on fast the computer can run the chksum on the files as they copy. Depends on if you are using Lightroom and converting them to DNG vs not converting them. Lots of depends on stuff as to what something is slow.
On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 11:55 AM Lea Murphy <lea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Hello all.I use the full line of Canon 5D cameras…original, 2, 3 and 4.My most frequently used bodies are the 5DM3 which is 22.3 MP, the 5DM4 is 30.4 MP.While it’s a nice difference in megapixels it isn’t ginormous, but downloading images from the 5DM4 to my computer (using firewire 800 on a Mac Pro running High Sierra with 32 gigs of RAM) takes ages. I’m using Lexar Pro compact flash cards (UDMA 7, 800x). My hard drive has over a terrabyte of available space on it.Is this slow process of downloading normal when using these larger megapixel cameras?Is there a link in my system that can be changed to speed file transfers up?Thanks for any insight you can offer,Lea
