# SD vs. CF cards



## mrodgers (Mar 19, 2009)

Right place for this?  Figured since it is digital related, but not exactly photography related but yet it is....

Why does everyone seem to like CF cards better than SD cards?  I often see comments such as "....but it uses SD and not a CF card...." or similar pop up now and then.  I have read things about people having problems with bent pins on CF cards before.

I have only SD cards as I have a superzoom and most use SD.  What is it about SD that is undesirable?  Is it just the fact that the higher you go in camera bodies, the less available SD is so that you would have to replace in the future?  Or is there a definite difference between the 2 cards?

I would think the "you would need to replace with CF later" would not be an issue as cameras get more and more advanced and file sizes climb anyways.  I actually do have an old camera that I forgot about that uses CF cards.  I have a handful of CF cards laying in a drawer at home that would be useless because you would only be able to fit maybe 2 shots on them if RAW (they would even be nearly useless with my 7mp JPEG only camera holding only a handful of shots.)  Thus my thoughts are, it doesn't matter because when you do upgrade to a body that only uses CF, you would need to buy larger quantity card anyways, thus you would replace the SD with CF or replace the inadaquate size CF with a larger capacity that would be needed.


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## bdavis (Mar 19, 2009)

SDs are catching up to CFs...just read a magazine article today that say they are making SDXC (Xtreme Capacity) and can hold up to potentially 2tb and write at a speed of 300mb/s


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## Garbz (Mar 19, 2009)

Durability is the only real difference, and even then we are talking about things like CF cards will survive being run over by a car (how often would that happen).

I think the reason is existing equipment. CF cards used to be the defacto standard for DSLRs so lots of people have them already. I don't see adding an SD card to the mix as a problem relating to the upgrade path, but more an inconvenience. Having all the same sockets in all your cameras makes life a hell of a lot more easier than having to buy a CF for one camera an xD for another an SD ... etc.

As for the technical merits bdavis mentioned, "xtreme capacity" means nothing because a CF card is "xtreme" in size compared to SD. If the SDs do get to 2TB it just means you can get the CF to 4TB. It's all the same technology on the inside, just the way the memory is addressed is different.


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## KD5NRH (Mar 19, 2009)

Garbz said:


> Durability is the only real difference, and even then we are talking about things like CF cards will survive being run over by a car (how often would that happen).



It only takes once to really suck.  Especially if it's just after you shot a high-paying job.

OTOH, the guts of a few SD cards I've seen cracked open were slightly smaller than a MicroSD, and looked like it might be entirely possible to do something drastic like shoot a hole in the card and still have a fair chance of not destroying the part with the data to the point where it would be unrecoverable.



> think the reason is existing equipment. CF cards used to be the defacto standard for DSLRs so lots of people have them already.



I suspect another part of it is the pitiful artificial limits previously placed on SD by the design.  (Specifically, the limits removed by SDHC)  A lot of SD-using products didn't catch up very quickly, and so are stuck with a relatively low capacity.


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