Do I have to use a UDMA CF card for a Nikon D700

[NikonNellie]

I am borrowing my son's D700 for a wedding shoot that I am doing for a friend's daughter.
I want to buy another memory card so that I don't run out in the middle of the shoot but I am not sure if I can get away with a normal CF card or do I have to use a UDMA one. I am guessing that I can use a normal one but the UDMA would give me a faster read rate. I would also have to buy a UDMA card reader. I have asked my son but I get the usual answer.....dunno.:scrtch:

Could someone recommend a suitable card . Also has anyone bought a card from the "Cheap Chips" advertiser on this forum?

[I @ M]

We bought 90% of all our cards from cheap chips. Can't fault them for service. :th3:

You don't have to buy a udma card to use in the D700 but the faster speeds will come in handy in the future probably.

I have never had any speed problems with the D700 full size NEF files being slow with a Lexar platinum 11 card but the way memory prices are dropping and file sizes are increasing future card purchases ( soon ) will definitely be of udma faster cards.

[NikonNellie]

Thanks Andrew. I will probably only get to use my son's camera just the one time so I will go with a normal CF card - he can buy his own UDMA one. He earns more money than I do. :D

[Tommo1965]

I bought two 16 Gig cards from this place http://www.e-piix.com/memory-cards/high-speed-compact-flash-cards.html ..it was the best deal I could find...I had the cards within 3 days from their shop on the gold coast


mine where $89 at the time..I see they are down to $68 now

[arthurking83]

Nellie, I'm pretty sure that you won't get to the point of filling the buffer quickly enough to require the need for a UDMA card.
Remember that the camera fills the buffer first, and I think the D700 will have the same 24 frame buffer of the D300/s.

So what this means is that you can shoot 24 frames in rapid succession before the camera slows noticably.
At this point is where you rely on the speed of the card to assist you in getting back to shooting lots of frames and quickly.

I can imagine a wedding situation where you may fire off 3 or 4 frames .. even 6 frames in a row just to be sure you get 'correct facial expressions' for at least one frame.
But then you'll probably be setting up or scouting and scanning for the next scene.
So the previous 3, 4 or 6 frames are all being written to the card in that time, and hence the buffer still has capacity to burn (in a manner of speaking).

If you shoot in this manner .. shoot fast(say up to 6 frames) and then give it a rest for a few seconds .. and then shoot again, you will have no problems.
I'm sure the card your son got with his D700 will be a capable enough card and not one from last century that operates at 300kb/s or so.
Even my slowest card(which is woefully slow!) is more than capable under those circumstances.

I got a super fast 90Mb/s(theoretically!) card really for those times when shooting fast paced sports type situations(go carts or Marlo Marathons).

[NikonNellie]

Thanks for that info Arthur. I am clueless when it comes to the techy side of photography. I have ordered the 16gb Lexar Platinum 11 card as suggested by Andrew - it should arrive tomorrow. Hopefully my son will remember to take his images off his camera's card as I am running out of space on my computer again. :D

[reaction]

I also think that most (all?) CF cards are UDMA nowadays. Note that UDMA is up to v7, D700 uses up to v6(?) and the speed ratings on the card have little relation to the real speed in camera.

There are cards where the 8GB ver may be faster than the 16GB ver or something weird like that. :efelant: