Customer Reviews

Transcend 32 GB Compact Flash Card 400X (Blue)

5 star:		(83)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

The performance seems to match or exceed the requirements of Canon 5D Mk II and does not cause any problem while taking pictures or shooting HD video. Most demanding picture format on 5D Mk II is RAW + JPEG (Fine+Large), and 32GB card can usually hold more than 900 of those.

If you need a fast high capacity CF card at a reasonable price, Transcend's 32GB (Blue) card is a good choice. This 400X card has a maximum read speed of 90MB/sec, and more importantly a write speed of 60MB/sec.

Shooting photos at maximum quality (saving both JPEG and RAW files), I was looking for a faster card for my Canon 7D an 18 megapixel digital SLR. The results using this card are excellent. The 7D has a burst rate of 8 frames per second, and the camera's buffer is large enough, so that you can easily shoot a 10 or 15 shot burst, without the camera locking up. Of course it takes some time for the camera to write to the card after such a burst, so I did a quick comparison using the Transcend 400x card, a Kingston 266x card, and a Transcend 133x card. I took a 10 shot burst, and then measured the time between the last shot and when the frame counter in the display stopped blinking, roughly indicating that data had finished writing to the card. The results of this crude test were, that the 400x card took 5 seconds, the 266x card 15 seconds, and the 133x card 25 seconds. Increasing to a 15 shot burst, the results were, 7.5 seconds for the 400x card, 22 seconds for the 266x card, and 37 seconds for the 133x card.

My tests are informal, and your results may vary, but these findings may provide some rough indication of the performance the card is capable of. I have used it on a couple of shoots, and haven't experienced any delays, while the camera writes to the card.

I have heard various professional photographers recommend using smaller cards, usually 8GB, rather than 16GB or 32GB cards. The thinking is that cards will eventually fail, and they feel more comfortable having their images from a particular shoot (usually a wedding), on several cards rather than on one card. That way if a card happens to fail, they will not lose all the images from that one event. While that kind of approach may make sense to someone shooting a wedding, I like having a card with enough capacity to shoot an entire event, and not have to worry about running out of memory or changing and keeping track of cards. Using a 7D, a 32GB card is good for about 950 images, which is great for photo shoots with models, shooting on a trip, or an extended event, like a basketball tournament, or runners in a marathon.

With camera file sizes increasing, "large capacity" is a relative term. So that 8GB card that was "huge" a couple of years ago, is kind of "small" today. Someday soon, the same will probably be true of even 32GB cards. Transcend's new 64GB (Blue) compact flash card may seem excessive, but digital SLR's being capable of shooting high definition video, has raised memory requirements to a new level. And finally, while using bigger cards may be more "risky" for some, for others they are more convenient, and they are generally less expensive per GB.

Due to good performance and reliability over several years, Transcend is a brand that I have come to trust for both compact flash and SD memory cards. Transcend cards are usually less expensive than equivalent cards by SanDisk or Lexar. They have a lifetime warranty, but fortunately I haven't had a Transcend card fail yet. If you do happen to get a bad card when buying from Amazon, replacement is usually a fast and hassle free process. This 400x card is fast, and at this time is a very good deal for under $100.

Like another poster, this card also failed on me after one month. I used it in a Canon 5DMk2, taking movies, images. I had an important shoot to do for a friend's family (all gathered from out of town). Everything seemed fine while taking the photos. I was able to review them on the camera, etc.

Got home, took the card out, plugged it into the PC's card reader.

Nothing. The computer didn't even see the card. I put it back into the camera. The camera also said that the card wasn't there, or needed to be formatted.

I tried every recovery program I had to find the card and the files. Nothing worked.

I tried formatting the card in the camera, and the camera wouldn't format it.

This is the last Transcend card I'm buying.

Just like several other users, this card died after 28 days of use. Well not totally died, but in the world of photography, if a card loses all the content once, it's useless from then on.

The card had about 150 photos on it. I imported them. Did not delete. Put into camera... no pictures. Put back into card reader... no pictures. Check available space... still taken up by phantom files which are invisible.

This card is worthless, and it seems to happen in roughly 10% of cases. That's a very bad track record. I'm glad that I didn't have my upcoming vacation photos from halfway around the world on it. I don't think Transcend would spring for a return trip to India.

Bottom line:
Don't trust this card with your important photos. Buy something else.

I've been using this card on my Canon 7D and it works great. Huge capacity so I don't need to worry about running out of space.

It's not the fastest card but it's not rated as such either, so I have no complaints.

It does what it says it does and that's all I asked of it.

So far I have not had reliability issues and I pray I don't have any in the future.

If you want a huge, decently fast card for a great price, this is it.

When I got my 5D MkII I wanted a big, fast card, and really didn't know what to expect in terms of price. I figured if I could find a 32GB that was at least 300-400x for under $100, I'd be set. I visited my local camera shop which is know for being pretty fair about mark-ups on items and was shocked when I was told a comparably fast 16GB card would run me around $129.

Obviously I decided to take my business to Amazon, and very quickly found this Transcend 400x 32GB card. For the price it's perfect. As a card in general it is superb. I frequently shoot video with the 5D MkII, and exclusively shoot RAW images, and I have yet to reach the limitations of this card's buffer and speed. Paired with my Lexar Professional Express Card Compact Flash Reader LRWEXPPRBNA I have an ideally speedy workflow.

If price is a major factor, and even if it isn't, don't hesitate to buy this CF card.

I was a little hesitant at first, knowing I was about to trust my entire vacation to this CF card in my Canon 5d Mark II (including some HD video). In the end, I discovered I had nothing to worry about.

I'm sure the Sandisk Extreme 20-billion cards are great, but the cost-to-performance ratio of the Transcend is outstanding at a fraction of the price. I shot in jpeg. I shot in RAW. I shot in HD video. My camera had no problems writing to the card, and the card appeared to have no problems keeping up with the camera.

All in all, I'm quite pleased. And, if I needed another one, I wouldn't hesitate to go with the Transcend 400X.

This Transcend 32Gb CF 400x Card has the build quality of a SanDisk 8Gb 200x card I borrowed from a friend the weekend before this came. I shot over 1100 photos in a matter of 90 minutes, all 25mb RAW files (totaling 25gb on the card), of two 15 month olds (so a mix of single shot and high speed bursts) and this card kept up just fine.

I don't see a need in my near future for a 600x card, and the 32Gb was more than enough space. When formatted, it is about 29.5Gb.

I have no regrets and for the price and quality, I would buy again without a doubt.

I used this with my Canon 5d MkII to capture 1080p video. The performance was great and I was very happy to begin with.

On the third day of shooting I had a big scare - a bunch of video clips disappeared when I put the memory card in my SanDisk CompactFlash FW 800 reader and transferred to my MacBook Pro 15". I had about 50 clips in total, of which 30 were lost and 20 remained. It was not possible to attribute it to a user mistake such as formatting the card. If anyone is interested in more details about this issue, I'd be more than happy to provide them.

Note 1: I don't know if the problem was caused by the memory card, the card reader or the computer/OS; they all appear to be potential culprits. Given the gravity of the problem, I wanted to share it anyway.

Note 2: I was able to recover 29/30 clips using a 3rd party software called "RescuePro". But at that point I had already gone back and re-shot those scenes :(

I'm not a fun of writing bad reviews. Personally I like Transcend and I have had many different flash cards and USB flash drives of this brand. All of them were excellent, except this case. The new 32gb card failed in my Canon 40D the same day I came to Acapulco, Mexico. I had about 300 photos taken by this time. The card seems to have some evidence of life - it shows that it has 3 gb used out of 32 gb but does not show any files and does not allow any access to the card. I need to get a CF reader now to try to recover the photos if it is still possible.

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Updated:
CF reader did not help. I could not neither get access to the file nor format the card. Returned it to Amazon.