I've never had a camera that uses SD cards, only CF (D1 up to D700), and only one card at a time. I plan on purchasing the D800e and wondering about the cards. I have a bunch of CF, but will likely purchase a few more for the greater capacity (biggest I have right now is 8GB).

My questions are, is one better than the other (CF vs SD) and can you use an SD in the camera without using a CF and vice versa? Not interested in comparisons of brands or sizes - more on quality of CF vs SD. Is one as good as the other?


Mike Guilbault
Elmvale, Ontario, Canada
http://www.PhotographyWorkshops.ca
http://www.MGPhotography.com

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CF is a bit more robust in build. CF is also faster if you get the fastest version of each. CF is also more expensive for the same speed and capacity of card. SD has a lock. And sometimes that offers WONDERFUL peace of mind.

You can use either CF or SD or both in the camera.

------
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There is no real difference. Except SD are often half the price of CF.

North East Wedding Photographer

I prefer SD because I have bent pins on CF a few times. I am just hoping that the CF slots on the D800 are better quality than some slots I have used but I have never had CF in a DSLR before.

I bought one of each @ 32 gb for this camera.

Rod W
Brisbane, QLD, Australia

While SD cards are cheaper for the same capacity, CF are more robust and are reported to be faster. Something about those tiny SD cards makes me think they will break if you look at them wrong, but more and more cameras are using them nowadays. I'm just going with the flow and have both slots in my D800e filled, but I'd personally prefer that it had two CF slots instead of mixing the formats.

Steve

A Nikonian in northeastern Ohio

http://stephen-bishop.com

Another thing to consider is how you transfer files. Both my MBP 15" and my MB Air 13" have onboard SD slots/readers. That makes it very convenient to pop the card out of the camera and into the computer for quick transfers.

I use both 32gb CF cards and 64gb SD cards in my D800. Overflow and video goes on the SD. If I'm just goofing around trying out camera settings then I'll change my primary slot to the SD for quick and easy transfers to my notebook.

Dave

I had a few 4 and 8GB CF cards left that I purchased several years ago for use with a D300. While on a trek to AZ/Utah, I had one of the 8 GB CF cards fail and I lost over 100 images that I could not go back and retake.

Our trek leader told me he never keeps a CF card longer than 18 months because he has had them fail with age and use. He marks the purchase date on each so he can track their ages. Subsequently, I threw away all of my 4 and 8 GB cards.

A fellow trekker recommended that I set my SD card as backup instead of overflow. I did so. As a result, I found that I would often end up waiting for the buffer to flush to both CF and SD after shooting a series of HDR frames. Since the trek, I have experienced the same waiting when shooting birds.

Finally, I plugged in one of my new 90 MB/s 32 GB CF cards, turned the setting to SD as overflow, and continued shooting. I never had another wait for buffer flush.

So now I don't have the assurance of continuous backup, but I also get more shots of scenes as they happen. I was missing great bird shots because I had no space left in the buffer (max buffer space is 16 frames for RAW loseless compression at 14 bits).

So you pick your poison. New expensive cards with great speed or older, slower cards that could fail...and pair them with SD as backup if you fear failure and will not be able to go back and re-take the shots.

Or you could get two D800 bodies, put a 32 GB 90 MB/s card in each and shoot away with little fear of missing a great shot. I have a D800 now with a D800E still on back order. (When it arrives, I will be posting a question as to when should I pick one over the other!!)

Larry Jordan

D800E, 14-24, 50, 24-70, 70-180 Micro, 80-400mm AF-S

Website:
http://larryjordan.smugmug.com/

I forgot about the MacBooks having an SD card reader built-in. There's a few jobs I shoot on location where that will be perfect. The last job I did like this I went through two card readers because of bent pins in the reader.

I agree with the 'build' of CF over SD. I guess that's why I was asking. Those SD cards just seem so flimsy. I've never had a CF card failure (I usually purchase the Sandisk Extreme ~ they didn't have the Sandisk Pro cards then).

In most cases, I'm probably good to use the SD as backup, except for events I shoot when speed is a factor and then it'll be for overflow.

I'll probably start with a 16GB (of each). I'm from the old school of 120 film and believe in the 'too many eggs in one basket' philosophy and would rather spread a shoot over a few cards rather than everything on one card.

Great advice guys... thanks!

Mike Guilbault
Elmvale, Ontario, Canada
http://www.PhotographyWorkshops.ca
http://www.MGPhotography.com

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

I used to be concerned about 'flimsy' SD cards too. I never trusted using them until I bought my X100 which only uses SD. I've used the same card on the X100 since it was released. That card gets swapped in and out so much I couldn't begin to estimate the physical handling that it's taken. Name brand SD card construction is no longer an issue for me and, with my shooting style, the write speed on a 633 card is not a concern either.

SD's were the only cards I owned before my D800. So I choose to buy 1 (one) CF card and use it as backup. Considering I have multiple SD card sizes and speeds I can swap in if needed.

CF cards were originally cheaper to manufacture than SD cards. The only reason SD cards are now cheaper is because they outsell CF cards a million? to one. Competition and volume brings the prices down.

Colin

"We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are" - Anaïs Nin

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For me the SD cards are too small for Ex. Large hands . The tactile feel of SD cards seems like a postage stamp , I worry the wind will blow them away if I change them in the field .
Most of my CF cards are San Disk Ex. .... Never had issues with them .

Hans K.

My Gallery

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You can select either (SD or CF) to be the primary.
The CF is a bit faster in terms of specs, but in practice, they take about the same amount of time to empty the buffer.

8Gb is really small for this camera and its giant RAW file size.

For me, i have 64 GB CF and 64 GB SD, and the camera is set to backup, so images get copied to both cards. but I only use the SD card to off load. As my mac has a port for it.

ALTHOUGH, big plus.. the cable to off load images from the camera is the same that my WD 1TB Portable drive uses.. saves space!

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A better question is why did Nikon choose to restrict the input size to Type I CF cards when the thicker Type 2 are available? Type II are 5mm thick which wont fit in the 3.3mm Type I slot.

Maybe to avoid any problems the SD to CF adaptors may cause?

Colin

"We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are" - Anaïs Nin

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Good morning, Mike,

I have never had a failure of a SanDisk card, but did have a failure with a secondary (inexpensive) brand of SD card. I just ordered another set of 32GB CF/SDHC SanDisk Extreme Pro cards for the D800E. All the CF cards for my D200 were Sandisk, as well as the SD cards for the Nikon 1 and waterproof Pentax p&s. I do not work for SanDisk but have confidence in their products. The last field trip with the D800E had it configured to put JPEG files on one chip, and RAW files on the other.

Happy shooting,
Randy

I hear you Randy. I've used nothing but Sandisk for 10+ years of digital shooting with never a failure. I still have some 1GB cards around left over from my D1 days!


Mike Guilbault
Elmvale, Ontario, Canada
http://www.PhotographyWorkshops.ca
http://www.MGPhotography.com

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

I recently did a shoot with both CF and SD in the D800. I sent the NEFs to the CF card with jpeg fine copies sent to the SD. For some reason I was getting a lot of hourglasses on the screen when I took a shot. One time I had to remove the battery to reset the camera. Not sure if it is related, but this was the only time I used that double-card setup.

>I have never had a failure of a SanDisk card, but did have a
>failure with a secondary (inexpensive) brand of SD card.

Exactly my experience - probably not a statistically significant sample, but enough for me to stick to SanDisk from now on.

When I ordered my D800 I got a new Lexar CF card with a capacity of 32GB and an SDX card at 64GB capacity. I use the CF for RAW files and if I shoot any JPGS or video, these go on the SD card. A bit of over kill but as already pointed out, you can read the SD cards in a MacBookPro without an external reader.

GH

I did not have any CF cards on hand when I got my D800 so used SD. I bought a 16gig CF and it did not work but I was 5,000 miles away when I tested it so could not take it back. When I got back "home" to St Petersburg I got another one from the computer store next door. It worked but the card reader I bought had a flaky cable. A new cable solved that.
Then I noticed no difference in green light time but a lot longer using the external CF reader to download the large files than when using the built-in SD reader in the HP i7 8gig laptop.

I've used CF's in instrumentation and recording applications and always worried about pin damage since I had to repair/replace sockets a dozen times over the years. I am thinking that SD, although slower by theory(serial SD versus parallel data path in CF), in practice I have had good luck with SD. I have lost a couple, and had a couple split apart but a tiny drop of glue put them back together. I had a Transcend fail with about 100 images on it but they replaced that no questions asked.
I usually use cheapies and find they work fine.
After long years in an industry where media failure was a major risk to rep and income(one such media failure cost me $100,000 out of pocket to rectify back in the early 80s when a hundred grand was actual money), I learned to put as little on a single point of failure as possible. So with the D90 it was 2gig cards. D7000 was 4-8 gig cards and the D800 16gig will likely be my comfort level. I do not use burst and I seem to take fewer but more deliberate shots with the D800 so a 16gig card is enough even for 8 hour events. Most subjects are on-shot actions without even looking at the review screen.
I think I would have preferred 2 SD slots or 2 CF, with a preference for SD because the socket is not the failure point. I would rather damage a cheap SD than the socket, with CF, if there is a problem at all with insertion or alignment, a $300++ repair bill is the result. With a SD, the loss is only a SD card.

ALL read/write media have a finite life of write cycles so they are less useful for applications where there are many writes, such as buffer memory for an instrument. But the very slow rep rate of photography, where the most a file is written is a dozen per second, they will last many years. I would wager that cheap SD cards last longer than the standard is still dominate. Few people will still be shooting with their old D800 shelf-queen camera by the time the cards run out of write cycles. When the D890002 is out, the puny 36mpx of the old dust collector will be saved for nostalgia but seldom see write cycles.
Stan
St Petersburg Russia

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Like Stan and others, I have used SD cards in my D7000 and D40 prior to he D7k. I have never had an issue with one.

I currently have over 40,000 shots on the D7000 and use the second card as overflow. I will sometimes swap the cards when I want to keep different series of shots separate.

I just ordered a D800. So I have joined the que. This thread is interesting.

John

My Pictures may be seen here: http://jmiguez.smugmug.com/

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** First Nikonians Post **

After using a D7000 for a couple of years, I was surprised to find a CF slot in my D800. I never gave it any thought.

CF cards are generally more rugged. Easy to prove: Take an old 512 MB CF and SD card and then pry them open. You will see the CF card wins hands down.

With that said, I am not a fan of CF. Here's why:

1) I use Macs. All have SD readers. None have CF.
2) You can bend the CF pins in your camera. I did it in my D200. Never had a SD reader device fail - and I've had scores of them
3) SD cards are generally cheaper.
4) SD is good enough

Here's my plan. I will buy one 32 GB CF for my D800. I am not going to bother buying another new CF reader. SD will be my primary recording media. When I need to use the CF as backup or when I forget to put an SD in my camera (this WILL happen), I will use D800's USB cable to get data off the CF.

Either way, I would have preferred 2 SDs.

>** First Nikonians Post **
>

Welcome to Nikonians!

John

My Pictures may be seen here: http://jmiguez.smugmug.com/

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Cards are not the weak point of the CF, it is the socket that requires precise alignment of the slot guides to prevent bending pins inside the camera. As a CF builds insertion counts the guide slots on the sides of the card wear so the tolerance of the slot worsens, increasing the odds of a slight misalignment of 1 or more pins. When that happens, the camera is dead until it can be sent to Nikon for socket replacement. I have had to replace a number of them in other types of gear which was a pain even though much easier to access the sockets in those units than the densely packed camera which requires major dis-assembly. If the pins were on the cards instead of the unit, no problem, just replace the card and loose the files. This way, the card is safe but the camera is dead.
A common precaution that experienced CF users learn is to try a new CF card for fit and alignment by very carefully inserting the card slowly and sense any friction points or drag as they slowly slide it in over several seconds. Stop if there is any unusual roughness to the sliding action to indicated rough molding of the plastic card that would allow for slight misalignment if pushed in all the way. If it is smooth with low resistance, it ought to be OK for a lot of insertions before the guides wear enough to risk the socket due to slop.
SD cards and their sockets are more forgiving in that respect with self aligning slide contacts that are not sensitive to alignment.
Stan
St Petersburg Russia

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I ran across this site the other day:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_wb_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-12451

Seems CF is faster by the numbers in this test. The other thing to note is the amount of shots taken in the 30 sec. burst. With CF cards you would maybe notice a few more frames compared to SD cards.

Chris

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This is a very interesting thread. Its made me think to hook up the camera to the computer (via USB) rather than take the cards out all the time. Obviously that is not an option all the time.

Comments on this technique are welcomed.
-------------
Please visit my galleries: Reza Gorji Photography

I've never had a problem with the CF cards, only the Readers. The Sandisk Firewire 400 readers I have work great. I've gone through quite a few off-brand readers though. The problem arises when the 'read' pins are not set far enough in the contraption and the card goes in skewed.

As others have stated here though, I think I'm going to stick with 16GB cards... the don't keep all your eggs in one basket kinda thing, and probably go with Sandisk Extreme Pro. Others may say that the cheaper cards are ok... but as a pro, I can't take chances.


Mike Guilbault
Elmvale, Ontario, Canada
http://www.PhotographyWorkshops.ca
http://www.MGPhotography.com

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Poorly constructed card readers can indeed be a problem with CF cards. The only time I've experienced bent pins was on a cheap generic reader that was built into my computer. I'm now using a Lexar USB 3.0 external reader, and it is nearly impossible to bend the pins even if I try.

Steve

A Nikonian in northeastern Ohio

http://stephen-bishop.com

You will find when you disassemble a card reader that the socket is not made any differently between brands, they all buy them from specialty manufacturers who, just a couple, who make connectors. The same ones Nikon uses in their finished products can be found in dozens of other lower cost products. The cost would get change back from a dime.
Sockets ARE a weakness in CF and have been a problem since they came out a long time ago. I was using them in recording effects units in 1994 and suffered bent pins soon after. Although they cost so little, a repair bill to disassemble a camera and reassemble it after replacement would run into several hundred dollars.
Stan
St Petersburg Russia

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I don't like SD cards. They are flimsy and are prone to getting locked when inserting in a card reader. I have one Lexar 16G SD card where the write protection slide broke off. I tried every way to unlock the card with pointed tipped tools but nothing worked. It's now useless. I have two cameras that only use SD but I won't buy expensive high capacity cards for them. It's just another reason to keep my D3X.

Len

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I had to send in a camera for bent pins, so not as thrilled with CF as I was.
I now prefer using the 64GB SanDisk SDXC 95MBs.
It seems noticeably faster than my 32GB Lexar 90MBs CF card,
especially when transferring to my computer thru the USB 3.0 reader.

I recently found out that faster cards save the battery.
I shot nearly 4,000 Large Fine JPEGs (16-24 MegaBytes) on one charge.

If you are not already, I expect micro SDHC cards will be used in compact cameras.
How many 32GB micro SDHC cards can you fit in your watch pocket?

I think I will be a bigger fan of the XQD cards when they become more standard.
They not only have more performance potential, but I like the size and pin arrangement.

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I think I am going to be boring and agree with most on this thread, I really do prefer CF over SD. I've been in scrums of photographers shooting runway and I am quite sure that SD cards would not survive well in that environment!

>I think I am going to be boring and agree with most on this
>thread, I really do prefer CF over SD. I've been in scrums of
>photographers shooting runway and I am quite sure that SD
>cards would not survive well in that environment!

Lots of people like CF cards UNTIL a problem occurs that results in bent pins. Then the repair bill can be several hundred dollars and maybe more.

My sad story is that I was shooting with another photographer who had a bad card reader, one with one of the center pins seriously misaligned. The crazy thing is that dispite that problem, all cards worked... ...for a while. then I noticed inserting one of my Lexar cards felt funny--the card didn't actually go in all the way. Cutting to the chase--four 8 GB CF cards were ruined and the pins on a D200 AND a D300 were mauled. That blew the DC-DC circuit board on the D300. The total cost for cards and camera repairs: about $800.

CF cards truly suck!

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Although my sample is small: Just dozens of SD and CF cards in my lifetime, only a CF card has ever failed me.

--

Craig

Same here Craig...a SanDisk 8 GB Extreme IV...and I lost 100 images...about four weeks ago.

Larry Jordan

D800E, 14-24, 50, 24-70, 70-180 Micro, 80-400mm AF-S

Website:
http://larryjordan.smugmug.com/

Same here Larry and Craig. My failure was a Lexar 16GB 400x.

Tom
D5000IR, V1, Oly OM-D E-M5
Nikkor Zooms: AF-S 18-105 f/3.5-5.6 VR, VR, AF-S 18-135 f/3.5-5.6
Nikkor primes: 24 f/2.8Ai-S, 28 f/2.8D, Micro 60 f/2.8, 85 f/1.4D, Nikkor-C 500 f/8 Refl.
Nikon 1 lenses: 10mm f/2.8, 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 VR, 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6.
Voigtlander 58mm f/1.4, Sigma 70-300 Macro f/3.5-5.6.
Oly 12-42mm f/3.5-5.6, 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3, 12mm f/2.0, 45mm f/1.8, 75mm f/1.8.
Lumix 20mm f/1.7, 14-140mm f/4.0-5.8, 100-300mm f/4.0-5.6
Gitzo GT3541L, Manfrotto MT293A4, MP 680B
Markins M-20, RRS BH-25 Pro

The only card I ever had that failed was an 8GB Lexar CF

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I am batting .500 with CF, bought only two for the D800 so far, one failed immediately. At that rate, it could get expensive.
Stan
St Petersburg Russia

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Love my san disk 32g extreme pro CF and SD combo. Very fast no problems, I got them for $152 CF and $89 SD. I figure I want my 800E to run at full horse power.
IMO for the most part you get what you pay for with camera gear.

I started digital with a D300 and it used CF cards. Never a failure with a CF card, and used 4GB and 8GB. My point and shoot I purchased later uses SD cards which also work well. Now with my D800 I plan to use multiple 16GB CF and 16GB SD San Disk Extreme Pro.
I expect reliable performance on either media type, and I will continue to take my time inserting and extracting the media.

Virge

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It's been mentioned but just to reiterate -- cards fail. All types. not often but they do.

Why pick between, why not put both in and use one as backup?

If you shoot lots of fast bursts it is an issue as write time is roughly the sum of the two, but since you have a camera with a backup slot, is it not worth the investment in a spare card of the other flavor to be a backup?

You know if your (single) card ever does fail, it will be just after you shot some irreplaceable images, a graduation, wedding, ufo landing....


Comments welcomed on pictures: Http://captivephotons.com

Just a FYI, before you trash that memory card, give a card recovery program a try. http://www.cardrecovery.com/

I thought my 8gb extreme SD card was trashed, but got this problem and recovered all of my photos. Also works with CF cards.

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Visit my Nikonians gallery.

I prefer SD because of the card edge connection instead of pins, and also my Sony VAIO notebook computer has a built-in SD card slot.

I don't understand why some cameras -- both Nikon and Canon -- offer both types of card slots. It would seem it is so you can use whichever card you prefer. However, if you want to use the other slot for overflow or backups then you have no choice but to buy both types of cards.

Rocky

I think Nikon has still has CF in the D800 for raw speed. Theoretically the fastest CF is faster than SD. In the real world, the winner is not so easy to pick.

In a speed is everything configuration, it would appear Nikon wants CF to be the primary card.

My macs come with SD readers so CF is not really my first choice any longer.

--

Craig