Supercharged SanDisk Extreme Compact Flash!
The new lightning-fast SanDisk Extreme & Extreme Pro compact flash memory cards are beginning to arrive on the shelves at Warehouse Express, plus the well-known Ultra II and Extreme III CF ranges have received a speed boost!
The SanDisk compact flash range
The new Extreme & Extreme Pro UDMA memory cards reach dizzying new heights in the read & write speed game; 60 & 90 MB/s respectively, which will certainly be handy for continuous shooting above 8fps and simultaneous RAW + JPEG capture.
| Ultra II 100x |
Extreme III 200x |
Extreme IV 300x |
Extreme 400x |
Extreme Pro 600x |
|
| Speed | 15MB/s | 30MB/s | 45MB/s | 60MB/s | 90MB/s |
| Capacities (GB) | 4, 8 | 4, 8, 16 | 4, 8, 16 | 8, 16, 32 | 16, 32, 64 |
| UDMA | - | UDMA | UDMA | UDMA 5 | UDMA 6 |
The Extreme Pro range includes a ground-breaking 64GB memory card, which is so ground-breaking that it isn’t compatible with the Nikon D300, D700, D2Xs, D3 & D3X (32GB maximum). Ahem. SanDisk have tested & confirmed the following cameras support their 64GB memory card: The Canon 50D, 5D, 5D Mk II, 1Ds Mk III, Nikon D300S, Sony Alpha 900 and Olympus E-30.
What is UDMA?
UDMA stands for Ultra Direct Memory Access. It’s a relatively new communication protocol for solid state storage, allowing data transfer rates to be twice as fast per ‘cycle’. UDMA is the new buzz-word in high performance memory cards.
UDMA enabled memory cards are backwards compatible with older cameras, switching back to Programmed Input Output (PIO) mode, but the read & write speeds are reduced significantly. Here’s a quick comparison of the maximum theoretical speeds of each mode:
| PIO Mode | Max Speed | UDMA Mode | Max Speed |
| 6 | 25MB/s | 6 | 133MB/s |
| 5 | 20MB/s | 5 | 100MB/s |
| 4 | 16.7MB/s | 4 | 66.7MB/s |
| 3 | 11.1MB/s | 3 | 44.4MB/s |
| 2 | 8.3MB/s | 2 | 33.3MB/s |
| 1 | 5.2MB/s | 1 | 25MB/s |
To take advantage of the transfer speeds UDMA offers you’ll need a compatible camera and UDMA-enabled memory card reader. The SanDisk Extreme Firewire reader is one of the fastest UDMA memory card readers on the market today, supporting UDMA up to mode 4 (66.7MB/s). Hopefully SanDisk will refresh the range eek even more performance out of the Extreme Pro memory cards…
So, what does UDMA translate into for photographers? Extended continuous shooting (camera dependant), increased battery life and faster downloads to your PC or Mac. Sounds good to me!
SanDisk Compact Flash Memory Cards
The SanDisk Ultra II, Extreme III, Extreme IV, Extreme and Extreme Pro compact flash memory cards are available at Warehouse Express.
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I’m never certain about the importance of memory card speed. Obviously the really cheap cards are really slow and this will affect your picture taking and time spent waiting for download to your computer. However, for many of us if not all of us, somewhere around the middle of the range the cards become faster than the device they are being used with and paying extra for extra speed seems a waste. But then, what if you upgrade your camera and now the cards are slowing you down, the extra cost would have been worth it.
Then there is the issue of what size card to buy – don’t get me started on that one!
Gary RogersI agree Gary – middle of the range cards (Extreme III & IV) are the best bet for most photographers until fast high-resolution cameras arrive (e.g. 15fps & 24 megapixels). In the meantime the 60-90mb/s cards will probably only be used for digital medium format & high definition video.
The new Hasselblad H4D (60 megapixels) can use the full 90mb/s of the Extreme Pro cards. I suspect you’d want a 32/64GB card too, a 4GB only holds 50 images!
http://www.hasselbladusa.com/promotions/h4d-launch.aspx
Oliver (author)http://www.hasselbladusa.com/media/2081132/uk_h4d_datasheet_v2.pdf
Has everyone seen the campaign Chase Jarvis did for theses cards?
Simonhttp://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2009/09/now-you-know-sandisk-extreme-pro.html
The behind the scenes videos are fascinating.
[...] good use when the 1D Mark IV is combined with a new UDMA 6 compact flash memory card, such as the SanDisk Extreme Pro range, capturing 121 JPEGs or 28 RAW images at the full 10 [...]
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