Transcend Information 128GB Compact flash Card - TS128GCF1000

Transcend Information 128GB Compact flash Card - TS128GCF1000
Customer Ratings: 4.5 stars
List Price: $449.99
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I use this in a Canon 5D Mk III.

Previously, only using the Lexar 1000x card could get you to maximum fps/burst on the Canon spec chart. That's not the case anymore.

I bought the 64GB version of this card having had good experiences with Transcend cards in the past. I upgraded it from a 32GB 400x Transcend CF card, which is now relegated to a backup card after being blown out of the water by this one.

I put this CF card into my 5D Mk III and turned off all settings such as high ISO noise reduction, auto lighting optimization, etc. (i.e. anything that might slow it down), back button focused on an object and then begin firing. SDHC card was in the camera, but relegated to being a fail over if the CF card filled up (which won't happen quickly, given I'm reading 1600+ shots on this 64GB card shooting Large RAW only). Shutter speed was set to 1/640.

The results are hard to argue with:

Shooting Large RAW on high speed continuous (6 fps), the camera says the buffer has 13 shots. I averaged 18/19 over about three seconds though before the shutter speed/rhythm started to stutter and slow down.

When I put my camera on silent continuous (3 fps, same as low speed continuous), I took over two hundred shots with no stutter before I took my finger off the shutter release button.

When I put it on Large JPEG, I fired of 230+ shots on high speed continuous (6 fps) with no lag or stutter before I took my finger off the shutter release button.

Bottom line: on the 5D Mk III, this 64GB 1000x CF card is more than fast enough for my occasional burst usage, and it's nearly $120 cheaper than the Lexar at the time of this review.

When I copied 1.91GB from the card to my local hard drive using a Sandisk ImageMate USB 3 card reader, it took 24 seconds. Granted, that is in a computer without bottlenecks, and the drive it is copying to is a Raid 0 comprised of two Solid State Drives.

An amazing, fast as blazes card, and given the RAW burst performance and price difference to the competition, a great deal to boot.

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Edited 3/29/2013:

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If sports and other situations where you frequently have to do extended burst shooting in RAW + JPEG is on the table, you may still want to consider the Lexar. Per Rob Gilbraith testing method, these are the burst numbers for RAW+JPEG for shots taken in 30 seconds on high speed continuous:

56

58

65

71

71

69

The 1000x lexar numbers on Rob Gilbraith's site are 73 75 shots in the same 30 second period. So the Lexar is a bit faster. Shooting RAW only on low speed continuous, or JPEGS on high, were not a problem.

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Edited 4/21/2013

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I have to take back what I said about the lexar card. What I needed to do was low level format this Transcend card. And now it's faster than the Lexar. And not by a little bit either.

This is what I did: I went to the transcendusa dot com website, selected United States, and in the Support section, on the Download page, downloaded the Autoformat utility. Be advised if you run it in windows, you must right click the utility and run it as administrator. I then did a complete format, which took several minutes (with my card in a card reader). I put the card back in the camera, and formatted it there.

Same test conditions as before now net the following burst numbers:

85

84

85

It's faster than the Lexar. But it must be low level formatted using the utility on the Transcend site, then formatted in camera.

Please note: the higher the ISO, the lower the burst numbers. I was only able to achieve these numbers at ISO 100. Raising the ISO number consistently reduces the burst numbers. Even at ISO 100, in subsequent testing, I was only able to achieve 84 bursts sometimes. I am trying to nail it down, but I suspect that it is either something to do with exposure or color, or that the card needs to warm up first. I will post any info if I figure it out. Lowest burst number I've been able to achieve since reformatting the card using the utility (at ISO 100) has been 71 shots in 30 seconds.

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