CF vs. SDHC cards

[Dubbs5050]

I have been talking to a wedding photographer about joining their team, and she has a concern with the capabilities of my camera. Her main thing that she has pointed out is that my camera (Pentax k10d) does not take CF cards, but rather takes SDHC. From what I can tell from surfing the web, SDHC cards are replacing CF cards....am I wrong? What is the difference, and what are CF cards capable of that SDHC cards are not? Any input would be great, thanks.

She mentioned that I should used their spare Canon D30 until I can afford to invest in new equipment. This is a bummer, because I love my camera....its like your kid getting cut from the varsity basketball team.

[CaraRose]

I'm not sure if there's a read/write speed difference? Maybe it's just inter compatibility with their camera and mem card format?

The main benefit I see of the SD card is contacts vs pins. CF cards use a lot of pin contacts, and pins break or bend and then you need to get your camera in for repair.

[CaraRose]

Found a web site with this

"Secure Digital (SD) cards are quite a bit smaller and lighter than CF cards. They have a 9 pin interface rather than a 50 pin interface and this limits them to a 4-bit data transfer bus rather than the 16-bit data transfer bus of CF cards. In principle this makes their maximum possible transfer speed slower, but in practice there is little difference when used with current digital cameras. In the past SD cards were more expensive than CF cards and were not available in as high a capacity versions, but this is really no longer true. The very small size of SD cards means that they are not available in a microdrive version, they are all solid state memory."

http://www.bobatkins.com/photography...ory_cards.html

So theoretically the CF card (16 bit bus vs 4 bit bus) may be faster, but it sounds like in practice it really doesn't make much difference.

[ronin2307]

I work in IT and have used both cards in various situations as well as cameras. While the tech specs would certainly suggest advantages and disadvantage I honestly cant see how any of that would make any significant difference for a photographer. Maybe in burst shooting situations, but SD cards also come in different classes and if you stick with a Class 6 SD or better, i cant imagine you would have any problems..

[poker]

A Canon D30 (3.3MP) would be pretty low in quality compared to your Pentax (10MP). I can't imagine why the memory card would matter. There are good and bad, slow and fast card for both formats.

[Frog]

Maybe she's a Canon exclusive person that thinks anything other than a Canon is inferior.
Ask if you can do a tag-a-long shoot and then let her see the quality of what you did.

[Franglais]

Ar you sure she didn't mean the Canon 30D? 8Mpix, pretty good low light performance. Anybody using the Canon D30 (3Mpix) for professional use today is not providing good service for their customers.

Assuming it's the 30D - just go along with it. Use the Pentax for your private stuff and do what your employers say for the professional stuff, however daft it seems. It's only a camera, after all. I've used lots.

[havana_joe]

I'm no expert, but I think in real-word use the only advantage with CF might be in burst shooting, but you'd really have to mash the shutter and hold it for a long time to fill the buffer and hit the write dump slow down on most modern DSLRs. Heck, my D40 with a basic SanDisk 2GB SD card does fine with burst shooting in most situations, and that's a basic camera and the card is not even SDHC. And really, how much bursting will you do at a wedding? Maybe some shots here and there, and for the throwing of the bouquet, but overall, I’d think your camera should be fine.

[Dubbs5050]

Yes Franglais, she did mean Canon 30D ... sorry, I got confused. Still, what is the difference? As far as I can tell my Pentax has more MP than the 30D, and I figure the card type shouldn't matter. I am chalking this up to being a case of Pentax discrimination! While I am not yet employed by them, I will get hired if they like my shots...in the event that happens, she seems pretty intent on making me invest in what she calls "better equipment"....which is very frustrating, considering I do not have a money tree in my backyard.

[OldClicker]

Sounds to me like someone who just has no idea what anyone besides Canon & Nikon makes. When you said Pentax, she probaly thought that they made P&S only and now is looking for some justification for her comments. - TF

[freygr]

It doesn't mater one bit. Just as long as it's not a slow write speed card there is not any difference other than interface and physical size. The memory IC's inside are the same!

[Skyman]

perhaps she is refering to the robustness of the camera, a 30d is built more strongly than the 300d and 3000d (the two cheaper versions of it when it was a new camera) In theory this means that it would be less prone to failure. It is a big problem when shooting weddings if all of a sudden you have a shutter seize or a lens mount decide to work loose etc. perhaps she is worried that the camera isn't physically up to the task. As for image quality I have seen wedding photopgrahpers using the most dubious gear, but as long as their customers are happy with the results then that is a risk they take. perhaps if you had a backup body she might be ok. You could also show her how many photos your camera has taken and point out that hers might be wearing out based on age, or that despite being a cheaper camera given that it has newer technology the image quality is actually better.....

Either way I would be careful working for someone who is panning your equipment without giving a concrete reason and yet still wants to hire you. It indicates that perhaps they don't know as much as they pretend.

[Dubbs5050]

Thanks for the responses folks. You have been a great help. I felt so crummy about my equipment after I heard that, I needed some reassurance.

[drg]

The capability of your camera is far more complex than is probably needed. However, do you have all the flash gear, strobes, and last but not least the right lens to do the job? If you have part of this is it compatible with what they have in case something needs to be swapped during the course of work?

The workflow for a non-Canon (or fill in the blank as needed) set of files (RAW or JPEG) from camera to delivery are going to be different. It can be a big deal with a lot of images. When it's my job we shoot one type of camera, Canon. When it's the photographer I partner with on wedding bookings, we shoot Nikon. I'm not as comfortable with Nikon and she's not as comfortable with Canon. But all the work is smoother with both on the same page.

The memory card issue falls into the same category. If you have a card fail or someone you are working with does then you can't swap them back and forth. A bit of unnecessary duplication.

CF card are a lot easier to handle fast. The connections are protected. The SD card in this picture has only been used for half a dozen times in a digital frame. Note the wear already. It is the exact same series as the SanDisk CF next to it. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words:

[SmartWombat]

I disagree on the fast handling.

SD cards have wipe contacts, not pin and socket. They are much less susceptible to damaging the camera or the card reader.

I have had to dismantle and repair my CF card reader/disk drive several times to fix bent pins where the card has not gone in exactly straight.
Eventually the pin will break I'm sure - once it's bent once it's weakened, and if it's not exactly straight in my repair then it's likely to bend again.

So to prevent damage to your equipment, you have to insert CF cards more carefully, more slowly, hurrying is a problem..

The CF cards themselves are more robust, you can't bend them, you can't snap them in half, and if you drop one it's likely to bounce and not blow away on the wind. They don't come flying out of the camera under their own power either!

No I'm not joking, I nearly lost a SD card out of my GH-1 when my fingernail slipped off the card as I pressed it in to release the catch and pop it out. Instead of just slipping out a few millimetres it came flying out and disappeared into the grass

I far prefer CF card rigidity, and robustness (I've stepped on a few) but don't like the weakness of the pin connector in the expensive bit - the camera !
My 1D bodies and 20D have so far had no problems, I think because the quality of the guides for the card is better.
But on the Sanho Hyperdrive and XSDrive II hard disk card backups I've had connector problems on both.

SD cards have a cutout to prevent them being mis-inserted but there seems no standard on which way round the cards ought to go into different cameras. Because they can be put in backwards (contacts towards you) it's possible to get frustrated in a hurry and find you can't get the card in - even though the SD card goes into the camera a little way!

CF cards are prevented from mis-insertion by the spacing of the guide rail, so that you can't get the card in if it's the wrong way round.

SD cards come in various standards too, and some cameras don't work with the newer cards. SDHC is a new standard for high capacity cards, and older cameras don't work with the higher capacity. There was an SD1 and SD2 standard too, and I had a really old camera that wouldn't work with 2G cards a few years ago.

In contrast CF cards just plug along happily and work in everything I've got that uses them.
With the exception of one ancient 1G card from an old batch of Lexar cards that they'll replace free so it works in my 1D (works in the 20D fine).

[SmartWombat]

she seems pretty intent on making me invest in what she calls "better equipment"

I doubt it's to do with camera quality - as you know MP count isn't everything - maybe to do with lens quality. But more likely the characteristics of the image; colour handling can be very subjective even if you have profiled everything, sharpness, bokeh, high ISO noise.

Apart from familiarity with their Canons, there's also the setup of their workflow - if they have pre-set editing and compensation adjustments then there would need to be a new set for your camera.
If they shoot RAW (I would expect them to) then they may only use Canon's DPP software instead of generic tools like Lightroom for initial adjustment.

So if you're shooting on different equipment then it's not to do with your SD card, but the different settings that will be needed to match their results.
I reckon there may be more work in post-production and editing than there is in the shooting, and if your use of a different camera creates extra work ... it's a potential issue.

[Dubbs5050]

Thanks for a very detailed response Wombat. To your second post, yes I do need to invest in better lenses... but, when she was inquiring about my camera she asked me only two questions, how many MP and whether it took a CF of SD card. I was confused because these would not be the first questions I had about one's camera. Either way, I am happy with my shooter, and certainly need to invest in some proper lenses if I want to get into wedding photography. Thanks again for the info everyone!

[SmartWombat]

asked me only two questions, how many MP and whether it took a CF or SD card

That's odd to me too.

[ksbryan0]

Dubbs5050 said: "she seems pretty intent on making me invest in what she calls "better equipment"....which is very frustrating, considering I do not have a money tree in my backyard"

When I read the line above, I immediately chuckled because last night I read an article by Moose Peterson regarding his start in the photography business, which has a similar theme to this thread! This excerpt is from a conversation between the then 21-year old Moose and his book-keeper:

[He got down to the box containing the dollar amount for all the gear purchased that year when he stopped and looked up at me and said, “That’s All?!” “I’m just starting out…I don’t have any money to spend…I’m only 21, I can only do so much.” He sat there and looked at me, which by the way, a stare that was very unsettling. Then after a moment he said, “Is this your business plan, excuses why you can’t do something?” I wasn’t sure how to take that, I felt like crying. Then I built up enough courage to say, “But I simply don’t have the money, what am I to do?”
John sat there for a moment contemplating, what we now have to expect from him, that wise, fatherly advice which is why we’ve counted on him all these years, that has always steered us so well. “Well, if you don’t invest in yourself, who in the hell ever will?” “If you don’t get off your butt and make things happen, how will anything ever happen, you think it’s just going to walk into the door and get handed to you?” “The best investment you can ever make is in yourself, whether it’s education, equipment or both. The door has been opened and now you must walk through it!”]

If you want to read the entire article, http://moosepeterson.com/blog/?p=12697