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Lexar 32GB 600x CF Card
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Lexar 32GB 600x CF Card

Lexar 32GB 600x CF Card. I'd get it at Adorama or Amazon. It helps me keep adding to this site when you use these links, or this link to a much larger list of Recommended Memory Cards, to get yours. Thanks! Ken.

 

July 2010     Nikon Reviews   Canon   Leica   Pentax

See also my Lexar 300x CF review and Lexar 233x CF review.

 

Sample Photos from Maui July 2010

Sample Photos from California's Central Coast June 2010

Sample Photos from New York City May and June 2010

Sample Photos from Maui May 2010

 

adorama

 
B&H Photo - Video - Pro Audio

Ritz Camera

I personally buy from Adorama, Amazon, Ritz, B&H, Calumet and J&R. I can't vouch for ads below.

 

I got one of these in May, 2010, and have been trying to kill it ever since. It won't choke, so I gave up trying to kill it and wrote this review, without anything about which to complain, in July 2010.

This Lexar 32GB 600x CF card is incredible: It records high-resolution images from my Nikon D3 or Canon 5D Mark II as fast as these cameras can crank, it never stumbles, coughs or hangs-up, and I can shoot for months and it doesn't even start to get full.

Just as important, all my files download fast, especially when used with a real Firewire reader like Lexar's Firewire 800 reader.

I tried to kill this card for over a month, and it just wouldn't die, regardless of how many stupid things I did to it. Specifically, one should always format a card anytime it is inserted into a camera, or anytime after it's been connected to a computer in any way. I shot for about six weeks, each time making a new folder for my next shoot, leaving the past work on the card without formatting.

I did this in a Canon 5D Mark II, and everything worked flawlessly. I finally gave up trying to kill it when I wanted to shoot some real photos in Hawaii, and didn't want to risk anything.

I have no idea why anyone would need a 32GB card when shot properly, which means downloading everything each evening and formatting it freshly every morning. Unless I was shooting DSLR video (which I don't do), I can't think of any reasonable reason anyone could shoot a meaningful 32GB in one session. Where would you store all this on hard drives? But heck, obviously there are many more kinds of photographers out there.

With 32GB, I have unlimited capacity to shoot for months on one card. If anything, having 32GB blank and available to shoot as fast as my camera will run encourages promiscuous shooting. That's a bad thing, if it leads people to shooting without taking the time to FART first.

 

Test Results

As tested here, I can download 4.5GB of photos card in under 80 seconds. That's ten day's shooting! I can download 500 MB, a typical day's shoot, in under ten seconds.

Shooting speed is largely irrelevant, and to me, download speed is everything. Unlike some people, I don't enjoy watching progress bars.

I have other speed tests here, and I also tested speeds with my earlier reviews of Lexar's 300x and 233x cards.

Lexar 600x cards are fast, especially when used with a professional-grade reader on Firewire.

Of course they're also bulletproof as I explained above. My Lexar 600x card just runs and runs and runs, never with any glitches or waiting.

As with all memory cards and hard drives, 32GB is a lie. On my Canon 5D Mark II, pressing the INFO button with a formatted card, or calling up the FORMAT menu, tells us that this 32GB card really only can store 29.8GB of pictures. Who cares? In two months, I had a hard time filing 10GB, and all cards lie like this, citing the old 1,024 bytes in a kB argument. (Actually, it's the sales and marketing departments who say 32GB, while engineering departments see what we customers actually get: only 29.8GB.)

 

Recommendations

I got one, and I love it. It just goes and goes and goes, as if it's totally transparent and has unlimited storage.

The 600x speed is important for fast downloads with a Firewire reader; if you're only using USB readers, your download speed is limited more by the speed of USB than these fast cards.

 

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I support my growing family through this website, as crazy as it might seem. I spend about 14 hours a day working on this website.

The biggest help is when you use any of these links when you get anything. It costs you nothing, and is this site's, and thus my family's, biggest source of support. These places always have the best prices and service, which is why I've used them since before this website existed. I recommend them all personally.

If you find this as helpful as a book you might have had to buy or a workshop you may have had to take, feel free to help me continue helping everyone.

If you've gotten your gear through one of my links or helped otherwise, you're family. It's great people like you who allow me to keep adding to this site full-time. Thanks!

If you haven't helped yet, please do, and consider helping me with a gift of $5.00.

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Thanks for reading!

Ken

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