SONY A900 Memory card Feedback

[vincenzo]

Dear All
Last year I bought a Kingston 32gb compact flash for my A900. After a month it failed. I also bought 2 x 8Gb Leodisk cards. One still works fine a year on, the other failed after a week.
I was looking for new cards on ebay but I decided that I couldn't find a reliable seller there. So much fraud on ebay with memory cards.
I'd like to hear your feedback on what cards work and what didn't with A900.
And whether you can recommend places where we can buy genuine cards for the lowest prices.

Cheers

Vincenzo

[David Kilpatrick]

I buy from mymemory.com and so far, I've never had a single card failure. I am currently using two Transcend 16GB CFs and I have never lost a single picture - they have been used on all the different cameras I get to test, Canon, Nikon mainly as well as Sony.

David

[01af]

The only card failure I ever encountered was with the first memory card that I bought in Spring 2005 for my then-new Dynax 7D---a SanDisk CF Extreme III 1 GB. It failed fifteen minutes after having started to use it for the first time. I returned it for a replacement and never had any problems since.

Currently I am using a SanDisk CF Extreme (60 MB/s) 32 GB, a SanDisk CF Extreme IV 16 GB, a Sony Memory Stick Pro-HG Duo HX 16 GB, a Hitachi Microdrive 6 GB, and a small collection of Pretec CF Cheetah 80× cards in 2 GB and 4 GB sizes in my A900, with no problems whatsoever after approx. 20,000 frames. I bought them from reputable on-line dealers, and they all are genuine as far as I can tell.

Do not buy cards from obscure sources; when the price is too good to be true then it usually isn't. A friend of mine once bought a SanDisk CF Extreme III 8 GB from eBay for a very attractive price and ended up with an imitation. It works, but it's by far not as fast as a genuine Extreme III card is supposed to be. You can tell the fake from the real thing only upon very close inspection and in direct comparison to a known good sample. Counterfeited memory cards are abundant!

-- Olaf

[pakodominguez]

Currently I am using ...
a Hitachi Microdrive 6 GB
...

Hello Olaf,

I used to be a fan of Microdrives because reliable and less expensive (back then) than CFs. What do you think about this 6 GB card? Is it fast enough for shooting RAW+JPG on the A900?

Regards

[01af]

What do you think about this 6 GB card? Is it fast enough for shooting RAW+JPG on the A900?

Yes, it is ... provided you don't want to shoot prolonged series at 5 fps repeatedly in quick succession. When shooting normally, i. e. single frames or occasional bursts of two or three frames then it's fast enough ... about the speed of a 40× solid-state CF card. But when filling up the buffer completely then it will take quite a long time for the card access light to go out. Thirty seconds (as opposed to 4 or 5 s with a modern fast card) can last very long when you're waiting.

So for "normal" shooting the Microdrive is perfectly usable, even in 24 MP RAW+JPEG format, but for shooting sports it's too slow. Anyway, it's reliable and has never lost a single frame in five years of use.

-- Olaf

[vincenzo]

Is this the type of transcend card you have David? Price looks good:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transcend-16Gb- ... 779&sr=1-3

[vincenzo]

But I just read this, which makes me worry. I'm fed up with card failures: http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/transcend-c ... 56919.html

[rogprov]

Here a link to help identify fake cards ...
http://www.overclockers.com.au/wiki/Fake_Memory_Cards

and another ...
http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/FAKE-Sony-Mem ... 0001535763

[David Kilpatrick]

Is this the type of transcend card you have David? Price looks good:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transcend-16Gb- ... 779&sr=1-3

Yes. They were £26.50 when I bought mine - plus some postage. I have two cards and they have proved 100% reliable over the last year. I do not need fast large cards (I have a SanDisk 4GB Ducati edition for that) and 133X is fine.

David

[bfitzgerald]

No A900 around here
But I use those Transcend cards, 133x. And a few others from the same maker.
No problems at all, they are backed with a lifetime warranty anyway.

[caporip]

I use the lexar professional UDMA cards. I have 4 8gb and 1 16gb card. They are not cheap although where I get them from (mymemory.co.uk) was competitive on price, I cannott see the point of rsking your images (which is what this is all about!) on cheaper cards. These Lexar cards have yet to let me down, and they are in any event guaranteed.

[harvey]

At the moment I'm using a SanDisk Extreme IV 8GB, no problems so far.

I usually go for the size where doubling the density starts to almost double the cost.

Harvey

[theresa_n]

But I just read this, which makes me worry. I'm fed up with card failures: http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/transcend-c ... 56919.html

I had a lot of problems with the Transcend 32GB that came with my camera. There are other reports of the a850 having problems with certain cards with Toshiba controllers. They sent me a replacement and so far has worked without a problem, crossed fingers.

[Mark K]

Without the knowledge of controller problems, I have bought Trascend 133x 8Gb, Pretec 233x 16Gb and 32 Gb before I finally purchased A850.
Well the 32 Gb version works perfectly on A100, A700, KM7D, EOS 30D and 5D, but not on A850 and not on D700. Both Sony and Pretec cannot explain this.
I bought a SanDisk Ultra 30MB/s 16Gb which works fine with A850 so I ended up with SanDisk Extreme 60Mb 16Gb and Transcend 400x 16Gb. I also found Photofast 366X and SanDisk Extreme III and Extreme IV are compatible with a850

With UDMA cards, a850 is much faster, despite its 3fps. I can use it for BIF...finally with an old beercan

[Dr. Harout]

Nice shot Mike.