CF Express B Memory Cards - A guide, and a question.

[Greg]

If someone had paid me £10 an hour I could have easily paid for a card in the time I have spent on research.

The CF scene is an absolute mine fields of choice, price, spec, reliability, availability.
First, you got to know what you want your camera to be capable of, not what your camera can deliver.
You cannot rely on the spec printed on the packing of the CF card.
You cannot buy 68 Gb card and expect it to work like a bigger card, in fact don't buy less than 128GB card they are too slow.

Once you have shelled out a few 100 pounds on 1 card don't forget to spend another 40 or more on a card reader.
If you wanted a cheap hobby don't buy a R5

This website describes in detail some leading CF cards. It is well worth the read. It could save you a lot of heart ache, and I hope I have saved some of you a lot of time.

CFexpress: A Real-World Performance Comparison

The newest, best cameras coming on the market use a new kind of memory card called CFexpress Type B. They’re fast, but they’re new, so users don’t really

petapixel.com

I almost bought a "Integral 128GB CFexpress Memory Card Type B 2.0 8K RAW and 4K 120 FPS 1700MB/s Read 1600MB/s Write Speed Designed for the Cinematographer and Professional Photographer". It was only £112, less than half the cost of a leading make with a much lower spec. Then I read the Amazon reviews, there were just far too many 1* reviews. In fact the total of *, **, *** and **** was almost as high as 5*. One review said the write speed was nothing like the 1600 Mb's advertised.

I finally bought a Sony 128 CF Express and a Rocketek USB 3.1 Gen 2 10Gbps CFexpress Reader for £193. it was open box.
The card is one of the better performers in the above link, and the reader has very good personal reviews

Lets hear what you bought and why and how you are getting on with it.

 

[AnsibleMedia]

Canon has a useful knowledgebase article detailing a list of tested/compatible cards and their limitations:

Canon Knowledge Base - Compatible Cards (EOS R5)

 

[Greg]

I just looked at that link, thanks. It may have been enough to make a decision. I am contented to have done the research

 

[Tim Mayo]

The PetaPixel article is nicely done and very helpful. I have quite a few different CFexpress and SD cards that I want to speed test in my R5 when I get the chance.

 

[Greg]

I want my card to cope with the max turbo frame rate. The fake SD card I was using would not do 2 frames I had to do repeat trigger actions. At the time I thought I had it set up incorrectly. When I did a test 20 frames at home I turned the camera off and it took about 15 seconds before the camera finished saving the data.

It will be interesting to see what your random collection of cards produces.

 

[Hali]

I bought the Sony 128GB cards after reading the Canon article and reviews online. I haven't done much yet, mostly landscape work which doesn't put the card through its paces. I also looked for a reader with USB C connectivity and that has been great, the upload speed to my computer is fantastic.

 

[Greg]

Hello All

I feel this is such an important part of the camera it needs to be brought back to the attention of the members. Buying the wrong card is like buying the wrong fuel for your car

 

[RedCobra]

I have a Sony Tough 128GB card and a Sandisk 128GB card. The Sandisk card gets really hot when shooting burst, and if I leave it in the card reader too long. The Sony does not. On another site populated by pro photo guys (Fred Miranda) the wisdom is Sony and Delkin are the only way to go.