Toronto Photography Meetup Group

i saw this yesterday. sounds good to me. i just need actual release date and may be price range. not sure if i want to buy the 5D MKII now or just wait for the MKIII? what do you think?

salamat

I'd recommend that if you really need a camera now, then buy what's currently available. Canon typically releases their new models in the fall (typically at one of the big photo shows in September), but even if you pay a cash deposit at announcement, the delivery in any volumes is often not until after Xmas.
So if you buy now, you will get a good 6-8 months of use out of it until you can really get the new model, which will give you a good chance to verify the specs on the new model etc...
Also, if you can wait 6-8 months, then maybe getting a 5DIII isn't the right choice as they may announce the next model of the 7... or 1D...

In short, I'd recommend to not bother waiting for something that doesn't yet exist as with all technology, there is ALWAYS something else just pending on the horizon that will be just that little bit better.

Why they would stick with CF is beyond me. CF cards will eventually disappear and cede share to sd. Dual sd would have been smarter imo.

I like CF cards, as I can't stand SD cards ... I don't have baby hands to handle those things.

People who have used pro cameras have a collection of CF cards already... lol Personally, I don't want to switch.

CF is usually faster and has a greater theoretical top speed to achieve. The more data these sensors start throwing around in a pile of fps that will be an important difference for some.

I always feel that the SD's will break .....Prefer CF's

I like CF cards, but when i went to try the Pentax 645D at the henry's show i was shocked it only took SD cards!!!!

What's up with that!!!

I believe CF cards average write/read can be significantly faster than SD cards.

edit: missed ions post which re-iterates his comment.

according to a Sandisk rep I spoke to, SD has far more potential than CF and that they will become the standard. He explained some tech stuff I don't understand (architecture etc). We transitioned from microdrives so CF --> SD shouldn't be difficult. Another advantage to SD is the card slot on Macbooks. No more readers needed Can't wait for dual SD slots in the next DXXX from Nikon.

I love the SD slot on my Macbook too but I prefer CF cards, don't know why, just do.

I've got a boatload of speedy CF cards as well but have taken to using a speedy SD in a Delkin CF adapter in my D3. The adapter slows things down but if you don't spray, not an issue.

One of the best reference sites for card speeds is Rob Galbraith's DPI site:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_ ... p?cid=6007

Select your specific camera from the list or go to the "Card-to-computer" section to see the high/low possibilities.

For CF Cards, most of the high-end cards seem to have a card-> computer transfer rate of ~80MB/sec

For SD Cards, the norm seems to be in the 20MB/sec range with a couple specific cards allowing 40MB/sec transfers.

+1

The only reason a manufacturer would focus on SD cards is cost savings. The majority of cameras (and other devices) use SD so there is coat savings for producing one standard. I think all laptops have SD slots now, not just Macs (I know my laptop, my daughter's, my work laptop, and my girlfriends netbook all do). SD only have more potential because manufacturers want to focus on them, but CF have more potential physically. In past conversations with an some camera reps, CFs have better capacity and top speed potential and run cooler when being use flat out (high frame rates for large raw files). Additionally they physically have more tolerances to ambient temperature variations and physical abuse.

Me too. The extra speed potential isn't that important to me. Maybe because they feel more substantial?

I have used both CF and SD in my Mk4 and don't notice any speed difference in capturing data (burst or video). For the cost reason I lean towards SD.

I only notice the SD shortcomings when dumping to my computer. There can be a significant time penalty

I've had at least 3-4 sd cards breakdown on me or the lock switch has falling off rendering it useless whereas I have yet to have a problem with my cf cards

That's a good point. I've had SD failure but no CF failure.

Same here. In the past I've had to use tape to cover the void from a missing broken off lock switch so that I can write to it again.

One of my camera's is dual SD cards -- and my biggest complaint about SD cards is the lock switch sometimes moves into the lock position when I insert the card. That's a pain in the rear.

I would wait if you can. I am hanging onto my 40D until the 5D3 is released and then I will make a decision on a M2 or M3. That said, those rebates are looking real sweet about now. Nickle now or a a dime later!!!

The 5D2 kit with the 24-105 would be nice for my upcoming trip

There was a price error that only lasted 12 hours at Black's. I was changing price tags with my manager and saw the 5DmkII with 24-105mm kit was $2299, it was supposed to be on sale for $3299.

We both stood there and stared hard....slowly reaching for wallets....

I should've jumped on it....but I didn't have $2300 to drop....*sigh*

omg....D:

Is there a price war going on? A few days ago Vistek had the 5D MK II for $2399, now it's down to $2279.

Merkle & Aden are the lowest at $2234.99

Verrrrry tempting.

I blame it on Rhommel. He mentioned the rebates and now everyone is checking out the local camera shop websites
The 5d2/24-105 kit is only 3k.

one week after Nikon's announcement?

On the subject of Cards, CF is hitting certain limits of capacity and speed which don't apply to SD.

CF is currently based on the Parallel ATA interface, and is close to maxing it out (it maxed out at 133MB/s in speed and 500GB in capacity with CF 4.0, CF 6.0 allows 167MB/s and 48bit LBA but isn't supported in the wild yet and may well never be due to the low speed limit as CFast supports 300MB/s and there's another proposed PCI-Express based standard that supports 500MB/s). The CF standard will be replaced by CFast, a SATA-based standard but that won't be pin-compatible to the current CF. At that transition you can expect pro-level cameras to mostly switch to SDHC/SDXC as the current SD specs allow for higher speeds (now that the UHS spec has been rolled out) and capacities up to current SATA HDD levels. Note that this switch allows dual SD in much lower end devices (like the D7000) as you can stick 2 SD slots into the same space as 1 CF. Quad SD is even a possibility on the larger cameras.

As to physical toughness, SD is FAR superior to CF. They have much more robust contacts (no pins) and the physical enclosure is simpler (2 plastic bits instead of a plastic frame with 2 thin metal walls) and tougher (SD is essentially impossible to crush in normal use, and you can't lose the covers like CF can be prone to). SD may feel flimsier but it isn't in actuality.

To sum it up, there's a format war coming for the CF replacement spec. The current CF spec is hitting its limits. Camera makers are likely going to switch to SD since the spec is settled rather than betting on one of the 3 possible ways for CF to go (and only one of those is backwards compatible to CF and it's massively slower than the other two).

The current SDXC spec (for cards larger than 32GB) is capable of performance higher than all but one of the possible CF replacements (it's capable of 400MB/s as currently defined, with current base spec being up to 100MB/s for UHS-104).

CF will get replaced. In the camera world that's going to be by SD of some flavour. Video and industrial use will probably be by CFast as it's already defined and shipping in small quantities and is SATA-compliant.

The top end write speed for the CF cards available today are not even being touched by any of the current DSLRs, so why would the manufacturers ditch it at this point?
They would probably focus on a larger and faster in camera buffer!