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Archive 2009 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

Ernst Slomp
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p.1 #1 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

Recently I bought two Kingston CF 8GB cards for my D300 for a price that was in mine opinion right (just € 22,00) a piece.

As always (like I used to do) I formatted them in my D300 and started to take photo’s in RAW and JPG fine. After taken almost 90 photo’s the display of my D300 gave me the code “CHA” witch means that the card is damaged. Strangely enough I was, after setting the camera of and on, still able to take photo’s.

Not liking the idea that the card could be corrupt or what so ever, I changed to the other 8GB card from Kingston …. With exactly the same result, also after more or less 90 photo’s the code “CHA” in my display.

So was I penny wise and pound foolish, because Nikon has the Kingston cards not on the recommended list? Although Kingston claims that this cards was tested correctly on the D300 Or did I get (what a coincidence) two bad cards. Nikon Netherlands only reply’s that it can’t be the camera (like they can see that by e-mail) and only refer to the “white list” of tested cCF cards.

Do you guys and girls out there any experience with 8GB Kingston 133x cards?

Or should I invested in a Sandisc CF card and pay almost twice the price?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Ernst Slomp

Jun 20, 2009 at 07:57 AM

gugs
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p.1 #2 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

I have used a few Kingston cards on the D70 and D200 without a problem (1 and 2GB), but in the meantime, all my CF cards are Sandisk (Extreme III), I only kept a few others as the ultimate backup. There are also LOTS of fake cards on the market, and I ALWAYS buy from a reputable real life shop, NEVER on the net or from a discounter. Sometimes quality does come with a price. Saving 20 EUR (or more) when I spend 10,000 on a trip or on gear to see all my pictures potentially ruined is not a very logical move to me...

About your particular issue: could you compare with another card (nothing happening after 90 pics ?), or how is the card behaving in another body (any friend in the neighborhood with a D300).

Guy

Jun 20, 2009 at 08:43 AM

pr4photos
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p.1 #3 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

I use the Kingston 8gb 133x card in my D300 and have shot thousands of images with it. Not had a problem in camera. Only problem I did have was that my old card reader didn't like it. A new Sandisk card reader replaced that and I use the Kingston every day.

Jun 20, 2009 at 09:49 AM

williamkazak
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p.1 #4 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

I second Guy's recommendation to only buy cards from a trusted source. I got two bad SanDisk cards off of eBay once. Otherwise, Sandisk is my brand with never a problem.

Jun 20, 2009 at 10:39 AM

kingmeow
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p.1 #5 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

Pull the card out and reseat it. Could be some dirt in the hole(s). CHA does not necessarily mean a bad card. You also get that error if the camera has issues reading the card (bent pin, bad contact, etc.). I would pull the card, visually check the holes and then put it back in and monitor. If CHA constantly happens to that card only then send it back to Kingston. I believe they have a life time warranty.

If CHA starts to occur more often with all your cards or the majority of it then it's your camera.

Jun 20, 2009 at 10:59 AM

Andre Labonte
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p.1 #6 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

I'll 3rd Guy's suggestion. Reputable dealer (B&H or Hunts) & only Sandisk or Lexar for me.

Sorry to hear about your experience. Can you return them?

Jun 20, 2009 at 12:49 PM

dcaswell
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p.1 #7 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

All compact flash cards are standardized. They all are designed to work in the same way and follow the CF standard. So it makes no sense to assume the card is incompatible: http://www.compactflash.org/

A very simple test would be to put it in your windows computer and do a chkdsk /R on it.

I would not be surprised to have the same factory make identical (except for the label) cards for different sellers (sandisk/kingston, etc.) and sell them for drastically different prices.

Flash memory has many more errors than hard disks but most of the errors for flash memory don't lead to complete failure.

Does your camera have a "deep format" option? That would be the first thing to try.

Jun 20, 2009 at 01:50 PM

davenfl
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p.1 #8 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

I have 5-8GB and 5-16GB Kingston 133x cards, they all work fine in my D700, D3, 5DMk2, and 50D. I think you perhaps have a camera problem.

Jun 20, 2009 at 01:54 PM

joonman
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p.1 #9 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

I have a 8GB Kingston elite pro 133x.

it's a card i only use if i'm in desperate need of another card.

for what ever reason it has an incredibly slow write speed with the d300 and I'm not the only one who has had this slow write problem. I have tried it on several friends with d300's and it was the same situation on each.

my primary cards are either sandisk extreme or lexar professional cards.

I use a 8gb lexar pro 133x card most of the time.
I don't necessarily need a fast card when shooting around but if I'm at an event I want to be able to shoot fast as not to miss anything.

I've had this discussion before. and someone linked this to us.

Rob Galbraith DPI: CF/SD performance Database

I can't say i've had any errors like that though. although i don't think i've shot more than a few shots with the kingston.

Jun 20, 2009 at 03:01 PM

sjms
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p.1 #10 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

you have one of the few cameras that supports UDMA to the max and yet you short change yourself on your cards. you even say you'd like to have the capability to do so. remember it is better to have and not need then need and not have. good cards a good cards, second tier cards are in the second tier for a reason. you have to balance price and performance. having a card that supports all your camera functions definitily tilts things in your favor. buy one of the sandisk extremes 3/4 or a lexar pro 300x and you'll end up with a lot of cards for sale on the B/S forum

Jun 20, 2009 at 03:07 PM

Avi B
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p.1 #11 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

Why bother getting crappy cheap cards for your camera? Go with Sandisk Extreme 3 or 4 or the Lexar Pro brands. They are good and they are fast.

Jun 20, 2009 at 05:26 PM

runamuck
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p.1 #12 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

Methinks its a camera problem. If you have another camera to test them on, try it. My guess is they will work on another camera.

I have cards that look like a Goldblatt's bargain basement assortment. The only "bad" card I ever got was a Lexar. It also appears that I killed it, but Sam's Club replaced it.

Jun 20, 2009 at 07:18 PM

sjms
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p.1 #13 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

methinks you are wrong

you have no bodies that support any sort of hi speed so how could you really tell. the difference between a D300 w/either of the cards i mentioned above and the D70/80 is like night and day.

a D80on its best day with a good card has a thruput of 8.5MB/s and w/kingston Ultimate rated at 133x just a hair over 7MB/s

a D300 is in another league actually another game with an appropriate UDMA card.
sandisk E4 30MB/s
sandisk E3 18MB/s 30MB/s edition
Kingston Ult 15MB/s rated at 133x

the interaction between the various card controllers and the cameras vary greatly

kingston as of late seems to be faltering with the quality of their products when they are pushed to perform.

Edited on Jun 20, 2009 at 07:51 PM · View previous versions

Jun 20, 2009 at 07:40 PM

Ernst Slomp
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p.1 #14 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

To all,

Thanks for your reply's!

To start at the beginning, I bought the cards at a store in Capelle a/d Yssel (not on the internet). So I suppose that isn't an issue and the cards are good.

@Guy, good suggestion, a friend of mine has also a D300. I will lend him a card and give him a go.

It seems that there is always a catch. Next week I will at least replace one of the Kingston cards for a Sandisk, no matter what the test on another D300 brings me. Better safe then sorry, could you imagine ...... being out there all day and you made the shot of the century, is the card corrupt

.

If the Sandisk also gives the same error, then I can go back to Nikon and let them fix it.

Cheers .......

Ernst Slomp

Jun 20, 2009 at 07:42 PM

Rodolfo Paiz
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p.1 #15 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

My first piece of Kingston memory was a RAM upgrade for a Compaq notebook in 1992. Kingston has never been "second-tier", they're simply less well-known in photography than other brands. Same as Crucial, which is the consumer direct-sale division of Micron, which (unless things have changed) is the second-largest memory manufacturer on Planet Earth. I use Transcend, Kingston, Crucial, Sandisk, and Lexar interchangeably (133x before on my D200, now all UDMA 266x or 300x for the D300). All perform in very similar ways and at similar speeds.

If the cards are genuine, it's always possible to get a bad card, even two bad cards from a bad lot. There can always be manufacturing defects and failures. As noted, they may be fakes, and all bets are off. But it could also be the camera. Get the cards out to Kingston for warranty repair, and they should either replace them or tell you that you had fakes. Try other cards in camera, and so on. Troubleshoot the problem.

However, I do suggest that you buy UDMA cards (266x or 300x) for your camera if you want to make the most of the D300's abilities. Write speed to the card will affect burst rates, and transfer rates to the computer (assuming a good eSATA or Firewire reader, since USB 2.0 maxes out around 20 MBps anyway), and Adorama has sold me Kingston 266x 8GB cards for $50 in the past.

Jun 20, 2009 at 09:44 PM

Andre Labonte
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p.1 #16 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

Hmmm I don't know, I have had issues with Kingston desktop memory as well. For desktop memory I typically go Patriot.

Jun 20, 2009 at 10:30 PM

linathael
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p.1 #17 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

Couple of comments when I read some of the reports:
- First: I had problem on a D70 and D300 with SanDisk III and SanDisk II card CF. It seemed to be a problem with contacts as switching off the body, ejecting/inserting the card was solving the problem. Of course I purchase a new card, as this issue appears after the warranty covering the CF.
- Most brands are NOT producing the Flash memory chips, at best; they are assembling them on PCB. Many of them are simply rebranding products manufactured by others. SanDisk is producing memory chips, and I ma about 100% sure than Lexar and Kingston are assembling chips only.
- if you can find CF with transfer speed varying from 2 MB/s to 40 MB/s, it is obvious that there is a difference, not only on the flash memory chips (SLC or MLC) but also with the controller.
- We could of course name brand well-renowned because they bring top-notch product at premium prices, while others try to go beyond specifications of their product to make them achieving performance levels for which they were not designed.
- The appropriate way to select your memory card is to define your usage, the size of a photo and the transfer speed of allowed by different models. The goal is to avoid creating a bottle neck at the interface between the camera cache memory and memory card. There is no need to go for 40 MB/s CF or SDHC if you usually only take single shoots on a D40. Now if you are used to 4 or more frame for each shoot on a D3x then, you should go for the card having the highest transfer speed.
- For a normal usage I would recommend to have transfer speed (in writing mode) 2-4x the size of the photo file generated by your camera. D70 files are around 3.5 MB, so a CF with 10 MB/s in writing speed is more than enough. For D90 and D300, you might want to go at least 20 MB/s probably 30 or 40 MB/s to feel comfortable.
- last but not least: all transfer speed indicated in my message are defined as writing speed, the slowest mode in memory card. So pay attention, you can have CH with 40 MB/s transfer speed in reading mode (getting access to the data stored on the memory card) but only 20 MB/s in writing speed (transferring data from the camera t o the memory card).

Jun 21, 2009 at 02:54 PM

runamuck
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p.1 #18 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

sjms wrote:
methinks you are wrong

you have no bodies that support any sort of hi speed so how could you really tell. the difference between a D300 w/either of the cards i mentioned above and the D70/80 is like night and day.

a D80on its best day with a good card has a thruput of 8.5MB/s and w/kingston Ultimate rated at 133x just a hair over 7MB/s

My D700 doesn't count, I guess. Some of us simply don't update sig files, so I guess I'm to be shot. The original post mentioned nothing about speed, simply that the cards hiccupped at ~90 frames. Do my (or Guy's) D70 count? They use CF cards also.

Jun 21, 2009 at 03:28 PM

SSISteve
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p.1 #19 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

I have been using Kingston cards for a number of years and have never had a problem. I have used them on a D70, D200, and now a D300.

Steve

Jun 21, 2009 at 04:01 PM

Ernst Slomp
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p.1 #20 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

I jut wonder, could the CHA message indicate that the camera isn't able to write its data to the card? Not that I was shooting sports, but maybe thats the issue.

But overall I'm stil not comfortable with the error. Yes the error was gone after a switch off and on, after that I switched the card. I just formated the card and going to shoot 90 frames and just wait and see.

Wednesday I see a friend of mine who has a D300, and let him do some testing.

Greatings ......

p.s. once again, thanks for all the reply's

Jun 21, 2009 at 04:49 PM

Eric Williams
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p.1 #21 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

I have the exact same result.

I have 2 of the new 8GB 133x Elite Pro cards that worked perfectly with a 5D II, and are horrible with the D300. In addition to the CHA error, I've also experienced 2-4 second delays when simply pressing the Menu button.

I'm keeping them around for when I pick up another Canon body - I don't think there's anything wrong with the card as the read/write was flawless with RAW 5D II files.

Jun 21, 2009 at 05:03 PM

Wickedfn4u
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p.1 #22 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

I would go with the try different card/s in yours and try yours in another body. I went with Transcend udma 4&8 GB and they have not missed a beat and were a great value. RG ranked them right at the top too so that really helps with the burst shots.

Jun 21, 2009 at 07:57 PM

chris78cpr
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p.1 #23 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

I use the Kingston 16GB 133x card in my 5D2/400D and 1dmkii with great results!

No problems.

Jun 21, 2009 at 11:29 PM

runamuck
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p.1 #24 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

Eric Williams wrote:
I have the exact same result.

I have 2 of the new 8GB 133x Elite Pro cards that worked perfectly with a 5D II, and are horrible with the D300. In addition to the CHA error, I've also experienced 2-4 second delays when simply pressing the Menu button.

I'm keeping them around for when I pick up another Canon body - I don't think there's anything wrong with the card as the read/write was flawless with RAW 5D II files.

I remember a problem with a Canon camera and a certain memory card. It's down there in the murky depths of Foggy Bottom, but I recall Canon and the card maker acknowledging the problem. Don't know what ever came of it, though. Maybe it's Nikon's turn in the barrel?

Maybe someone with a better memory than me will fill in the details.

Jun 22, 2009 at 12:15 AM

Ivo Heshusius
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p.1 #25 · Penny wise, pound foolish?

Ernst,

I would contact Kamera-express (I guess this is the shop you bought your cards) and tell them about your experiences. They will work out a solution with you - these guys are great!

Jun 22, 2009 at 07:27 AM


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