Customer Reviews

SanDisk 8 GB Extreme III CF Card SDCFX3-008G-A31 (Retail Package)

5 star:		(106)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I recently switched over to shooting RAW (7-9 meg a shot) instead of jpeg (2-4 meg a shot) so I decided to get some extra memory (I already had 1-4Gig and 5-1Gig cards.) I must say, I have not been disappointed. This card is very fast, it out preforms my Ultra IIs and the transfer rate to my computer is amazing when I use this card with the Sandisk Extreme Fire-Wire Reader.

I can put over 1,000 RAW files or about 4,000 jpegs on this card and then transfer them all over to my computer in just a few minutes instead of closer to a half-hour. It seems to average around 1Gig a minute. Using burst mode with my camera has also never been faster, this card writes the images almost instantly, with no noticeable lag time, which means you can basically shoot as fast as you camera can handle and the card will keep up.

I have been using this card for a few months now and have taken several thousand shots with it without any problems. If you have the need and the cash this is a great product.

This is a great product and fast. Fast enough for most of us. I was thinking in getting the ver. IV but for the money and how fast my Canon 40D can write, this is the right one to get. The IV is much faster but there is no DSLR capable of writing at such high speed yet. Save some money and get this one. You will be happy.

Once I started shooting RAW I quickly realized that the 2 GB cards just weren't large enough for my weekend trips. I bought the Extreme III 8GB card and am confident that this is what I need. It writes quickly with the 40D and is a very good value for the amount of memory. Highly recommend. Typical SanDisk quality card; I have used a lot of them over the years and never had a failure.

I purchased 2 of these cards from Amazon. One works OK the other consistently gives IO errors. The RescuePro 3.2 disk that comes with this cannot read the card at all. Vista can read most files on the card but I have 5 or 6 photos bad each time I write to the card. 3/26 update - SanDisk replaced the defective card with a new one. Took about 3 weeks after filling out their on-line form and a few emails to answer their questions. I have gone back to using my 4 GB SanDisk cards - I still have not completely restored my trust in these 8GB cards. I paid extra for the Extreme cards - I expect the quality to be better. And I am disappointed in their rescue software if Vista can read the defective card better than their special software.

Bought the 8gb Extreme III before going to a friend's wedding, as I had also just picked up a Canon 40D and wanted to give the camera's burst shooting a workout. All of the shots were captured quickly, I never had to wait for the camera/memory to "catch up" so I was generally pleased - until I got home...

Apparently it's not such a good idea to mess with the file structure outside of your camera. I popped the card into my computer's card reader and started to delete some blurry and duplicate shots I just didn't need. I then popped the card back into the camera to take some shots around my house and the camera read "card not formatted". At that point, I decided to pop the card back into the computer to see what the deal was. I almost had a heart-attack when I saw an empty folder where there had once been about 1300 JPG files. Luckily the story has a good ending... I used the RescuePRO software that came with the card and it found the files (even files that I had deleted manually from my camera during the wedding).

I would strongly recommend that you format your card upon first use and each time you swap between computer and camera (obviously, save the files to your computer before your re-format). After the RescuePRO memory recovery (took about 2 hours) and a fresh re-format, the card seems to work fine. I hope my incident helps current and new E-III buyers.

If you divide dollars per gigabyte, the Extreme III 8.0 GB card represents the cost knee where you get the most bang for the buck. The 12GB is higher, as is the 4 GB in %/GB. At 8GB as I write this in November 2007 it is the best value in memory cards. Now tomorrow Amazon may re-price everything and this may not be true - so be sure to divide dollars by gigabytes in the 4, 8 and 12 cards unless you just want the biggest -- then buy the 12 GB. They all perform wonderfully fast on devices with firmware to handle the fast read/write CF interface. I'm using it with an E300 camera from Olympus and found the camera was the limiting factor in write speed compared to using it on my computer. With 8GB you can take hundreds of uncompressed photos at maximum resolution using your 8-12 Megapixel camera. Compare that with the old 36 exposure roll of film and you see how convenient it is to never have to open your camera and load film!

Keep on shooting!

Unlike the Ultra II, the Extreme III never slows down my photography no matter how many shots i take in quick succession. (My camera's a Canon EOS 5D). The Ultra II almost always makes me miss some 'perfect' shot (you know, when the otter finally dives right in front of you), but the Extreme III has never slowed me down or caused me to miss a shot. For this, it's definitely worth the extra $$$.

I purchased 2 of the 8gb cards for use with my Canon EOS 40D and they are fantastic. I have yet to find a situation where my camera has been limited by the speed of the card. I highly recommend this card.

I have enjoyed having the larger memory card in my new dslr camera. The only reason why I didn't give this product a 5 star review is because it required me to buy a new memory card reader just to be able to get photos off the card. My 3 year old sandisk reader was useless with this memory card while connected to a mac. After upgrading to an Extreme sandisk memory card reader, everything is good.

This is a great CF card. I've been using Sandisk cards for years and have never had a problem with any of them (CF and SD). If you shoot RAW, then you're going to need a good sized card that is fast. With a firewire CF reader, I can download a full card in less than 5 minutes, compared to 30 minutes with USB. I'm sure the Extreme IV is a great card as well, but for the money you can't beat this one.