How to Buy a CF Memory Card – Speed & Size

After buying your DSLR camera and a lens, the next thing you need is a good memory card. It’s the only place where all of your photographs/videos are stored at, so don’t go cheap here because you risk losing all of your shots, missing opportunities because the card is too slow and so on… In this guide, you’ll quickly learn the most important things you need to understand about buying a CF memory card, and I’ll also show you which cards are the best!

Speed/Writing

Every single photo/video needs to be written on your memory card, and how fast that happens depends on its writing speed. If your camera has plenty of megapixels (over 16), and/or a fast burst mode (5fps+), you’ll definitely need something that won’t make you miss shots because the card is too slow.

The Lexar Professional 64GB CF Card is one of the most popular ones out there; it’s fast, offers enough storage for todays memory demands and is affordable! Here’s a breakdown of how to tell if a card is fast enough:

• 266x – 40MB/s
• 400x – 60MB/s
• 600x – 90MB/s
• 1066x – 160MB/s

Don’t go lower than 266x speed and you’ll be fine, even with the latest cameras. 40MB/s is actually a good speed for cameras up to 15 megapixels, and will also be just fine for HD video recording. However, if you never want to experience any delay when shooting, and also do Full HD videos, make sure to go with 400x speed or higher! For 3D video and 4K resolution recording we’d suggest going with 1066x.

Capacity

More gigabytes equals more photographs you can store. If you plan on recording videos then you will need even more space! The average size of a photograph today is around 5 megabytes, meaning you could have less than a thousand on a 4GB memory card. Add in two short videos and you’re pretty much done.

• 16GB – Minimum size for most cameras today, store hundreds and hundreds of photographs and long video files.

• 32GB or 64GB –  If you like to travel, or just don’t transfer the photographs on your computer, investing in a bigger card wouldn’t be such a bad idea. If the card fails you do risk losing all of your shots, as opposed to buying 2 x 16GB memory cards, but if you buy from a good brand that’s unlikely to happen.

Best CF Memory Cards to Buy

If you’re looking for the best combination of speed and size, the Lexar Professional 64GB Card offers 1066x speed (up to 160MB/s), which is more than enough for years to come. In case you feel you need some more space, check out the SanDisk Extreme 128GB also with 1066x speed, or Lexar Professional 256GB with the same 1066x speed.

If cost is a concern AND you don’t need the highest speed you can also consider one of these cards. Lexar Professional 64GB with 800x speed (120MB/s) or the Lexar Professional 32GB with 1000x speed (150MB/s). Both are good value cards.

Those who record lots of long videos might actually need something bigger, like the SanDisk Extreme Pro 256GB, capable of writing up to 160MB/s. You know this card is just waiting to write some big files and will be able to handle anything you throw at it.

When choosing a brand, I recommend you to stick with SanDisk and Lexar. They’ve been in the game for a long time, have an excellent reputation, great prices and less failed cards than anyone else. If you can put your trust into one card and you need as much storage as you can get, then also check out the Lexar Professional 256GB that offers 1066x speed for a price of a cheap lens. I’ve used both brands (at first SanDisk only), and would recommend them to any photographer!