CF Card speed

Anyone here got the skinny on CF card speed? Do the higher speed (90MB/s) cards make that much of a difference? Is the difference in writing or just in transferring images to the computer? I need to stock up on some CF cards before we start traveling this summer and Adorama has a sale going on this week. I'm just debating on whether or not to go with the 90MB/s cards or just go with the 60MB/s cards. I don't shoot video or high speed continuous stills, so I'm thinking I won't notice a marginally slower write speed.

More than you ever wanted to know, but here are the most recent threads;

http://community.the-digital-picture...ead.php?t=5294

http://community.the-digital-picture...ead.php?t=5970

The first thread several of us did quit a bit of testing, on the second thread John posted a spread sheet which shows his results. His results are fairly typical.

While you might see one or two more frames in a 20 second burst from the 90mbs, the improvement is small.

The speed only matters with the cameras ability to recover from a burst, and of course it downloads faster.

Another thought, if you have the new 5D III with its faster processer, it very well may perform even better than the bodies tested.

Thanks for the links. Seems like there is no sense in spending the extra bucks on the high speed stuff for what I do. The difference between 60MB/s and 90MB/s on the 7D is just a few extra images on a 20 second burst shot. I never do that anyway. And I've never had an issue with the speed of card dumps to my PC, so no gain there either.

Thanks again. Now I wait until the 60MB/s cards go on sale Wednesday.

In four years of shooting DSLR’s I have only seen it matter one time, and when it did matter it was the camera’s fault more than if I had a faster card. I had been trying to get close to a pair of eagles and the closest shot I had gotten was a hundred yards away. The pair had a baby and an Osprey came to close, they went after the Osprey and there was a battle that lasted about a minute. At the end one flew directly toward me and offered a perfect fly by then overhead shot. Through the whole battle the “BUSY” light was on more than I shot.

I was using the 5D II, with the 1D IV it recovers fast enough I have never noticed the problem. For me I keep the fastest card I can in the camera. You never know when it will mater, and those kinds of chances only happen once in a very great while. For that matter I may never see another Bald Eagle vs Osprey