The dpreview test of the 410 shows that the camera is capable of writing
about 7 MB/sec if it has a card that's fast enough.
<http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse410/page10.asp>
Looking back at tests for the Canyon 5D (since older cards were being
used for testing then)
<http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos5d/page11.asp>
we find that the SanDisk 4GB Ultra II (which I consider the sweet spot
for a 5D) is only hitting 5.1 MB raw write speed while the Lexar Pro 2GB
80x is hitting 7.1 MB and the SanDisk 2GB Extreme III is up to 8.3 MB.
I find this a somewhat curious result since my 2GB SanDisk Ultra II is
decidedly faster on download than my 8GB Lexar 133X. I've never tested
either one on write times in camera since I'm not a speed shooter. Also
note that the SanDisk 16GB Extreme III doesn't perform all that well on
the 410.
I think the key to understanding some of these apparent discrepancies in
performance on apparently equivalent technology has to do with CF card
capacity. Once the card gets over 2GB you're into FAT32 formatting
which means lots of additional software overhead for keeping track of
many smaller and thus many more clusters to store the same data. Note
that dpreview reports a Lexar 80X as outperforming an Ultra II on a 5D
while on my 5D my Ultra II cards outperform the Lexar 133X. But there's
a big difference in capacity of the cards. The Lexar 80X tested by
dpreview is a 2GB card while my Lexar 133X is an 8 GB card. The 2 GB
card is divided into approximately 61,000 data clusters which must be
kept track of. The 8 GB card has approximately 1,953,000 clusters which
must be kept track of. It's no wonder that there might be a significant
performance difference due to internal bookkeeping.
You know from the test results at dpreview for the 410 that the 2GB
SanDisk Extreme IV delivered the best peformance. But I'd also guess
that the same size Extreme III would be barking on its heels at a lesser
price. With no other information than I've got here that would be my
choice. If performance is important stick with 2GB cards.
Chuck Norcutt
GMcGrath@xxxxxxx wrote:
> I'm about to take the plunge and order a 510, but the number of different
> options in CF cards is mind-numbing. In particular, I see that there are
> various
> "levels" of write speeds available. I see that there are 60x, 133x, and 300x
> cards, to name a few. I want to use cards that are fast enough not to slow
> the
> camera down, but don't want to spend extra for speed I can't use.
>
> I'd appreciate any advice the collective wisdom of the list can provide on
> card speed, as well as any brands members have had especially good or bad
> luck
> with.
>
> TIA
> Greg
>
>
>
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