Customer Reviews

Lexar Media 1 GB 80x Pro Series Compact Flash Card (CF1GB-80-380)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This Compact Flash card works very well with my Canon EOS 20D but I found out (Lexar's web site) that Lexar's Write Acceleration Technology is not supported by Canon (at least not officially). So may be for Canon camera's owners it's not worth buying the 1GB 80x card when the 1 GB 40x would suffice.

I recently purchased the Nikon D70 camera, and this was the CF card I selected for it. It works wonderfully, and I have found that the 80x write acceleration really does make a difference; as compared to non-write accelerated cards. With this card, I am basically able to do a continuous shoot at the largest jpeg quality (not RAW) and have the card record them almost as fast as I shoot.

About the only thing odd I found about the card is that there is included software with it, and the software only appears on the memory card. So if you want to get the full storage potential out of the card, you need to first either format (and lose the software), or hook the card up to a PC and copy it off. Annoying.

If you own a Canon camera, Canon does NOT support WA (Write Acceleration) feature of Lexar's high-speed cards:

http://www.lexar.com/digfilm/wa_cf.html

Current camera partners supporting Write Acceleration Technology:

-Kodak Professional
-Nikon
-Sanyo
-Sigma
-Pentax
-Olympus

Even without the current $20 mail-in rebate, the Lexar 1GB 80x CF card is a great bundle, as it includes a valuable piece of software called Image Rescue. For prosumer and pro photographers, it's critical to be on guard against memory errors and be able to recover "lost" images before resorting to formmatting.

The Lexar is a very fast CF card. PAD's review from October 4, 2004 was not exactly correct. The write acceleration (WA) technology from Lexar supposedly implements a multi-sector write mode in dSLRs that support this technology. While this sounds great on paper, in practice it's not important that your dSLR (e.g., Canon's excellent offerings) does not support it. The dSLR is already optimized for super-fast serial writes, and all dSLRs can take advantage of Lexar's high-speed architecture, just like they can with Sandisk's pro CF cards. Indeed, Lexar guarantees that the card will work in your camera, or your money back.

Should you get a Lexar or a Sandisk? It's pretty much a toss-up, esp. after Sandisk seems to have fixed the QA problems that plagued its flash memory cards a couple years back. My recommendation: just get the one that's cheaper. For the same price, though, the Lexar has Image Rescue, which makes it a better bundle.

I'm using the 1GB 80x Lexar card with a Nikon D70 digital SLR and it has worked extremely well. There are cards with more storage but for your average amateur photographer there is enough space to hold plenty of shots. The card is very fast, writing at 12MB per second, so even shooting at maximum resolution means you don't have to wait. Of course, in 2 years a 4 or 8 Gig card will probably cost the same, but for now this is a great card for the money. Highly recommended.

Before you purchase this card, make sure that your camera supports the Write Acceleration Technology. I purchased Lexar's 40x 256MB card (with Write Acceleration) about a year ago for my Minolta DiMage 7Hi camera, and realized my camera did not support the new technology. The CF card still worked, but there was no increase in speed over other cards.

I checked Lexar's website, and it said that my camera does not support the Write Acceleration technology. The link is here: http://www.lexar.com/digfilm/wa_cf.html

Current (as of this review) cameras supporting WA technology:
- All Kodak Professional cameras and pro camera backs, such as the DCS Pro Back 645, DCS Pro Back Plus, DCS 720x, DCS 760, DCS 760m and DCS 14n
- Nikon D1x, D1h, D-100 (Requires camera firmware upgrade by Nikon. See Nikon's web page for more details) and D2h
- Sanyo DSC-MZ3
- Sigma SD-9
- Sigma SD10
- Pentax *ist D
- Olympus E1

Lexar USB Card Reader (included... note: this was with my 40x card. you may or may not receive the same reader.):
- Works only with Lexar CF Cards. Attempted to use with SanDisk and Kingston CF Cards but did not work. Should not be a problem if you only use Lexar products. However, if you do, consider buying a separate card reader.


For a full breakdown of how many pictures you can take with different card capacities, go to http://www.lexar.com/digfilm/capacity_chart.html

I purchased the Lexar 1GB 80x Pro CF card for use with my Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT 8 mega pixel DSLR camera. I also have a SanDisk 1GB CF card which I also use with the DSLR. Of the two cards the Lexar is far and away the fastest in recording & reading, I can take multiple shots at the camera's highest resolution (8 Mega Pixels)yet never have to wait for the shots to be saved before shooting more. There are also no compatibility problems.

To be fair to the Sandisk, it's an older model I purchased a few years ago for a MP3 player, however I now use it only as a backup to the Lexar.

I plan on buying a couple more of these cards in the near future.

With the larger megapixel requirements of todays cameras the extra space and speed of this card is most heartily welcome! I have not used the repair software included on the card and hope to never need it, but I'm glad its there. (be sure to copy the software before formating the card or it will be gone!)

We bought the card in January and used it with great results for 5 months. Then we got an err 2 on out Canon XT (cf card error). So we reformatted the card. Happened again. We tried the card in another camera and got the same error, only now the card won't accept any pictures and is completely unusable.

We contacted Lexar and they are sending us a new card. Lexar honored their warranty completely with no hassle. We have not recieved the new card yet since we only talked with them 4 days ago. So the card gets 0-1 stars and Lexar gets 4-5 stars.

This CF card is so fast that I can run my shutter on my camera non stop until the card is full at a frame rate of 3.5 fps. No lag or slow down. That is amazing. It makes my camera perform better. (Canon Rebel XT)