CF Card question

[mstark70]

I was wondering,

Do the CF Cards ever wear out or crash? I have never had one fail but I was just curious.

Thanks~

[Jim Bryant]

Depends on who makes them. I use Lexar and Scandisk, which are pretty good and I haven't had any problems with any of them except when I washed a few that were in my pants pocket. I just let them dry out for a couple of days and they worked good as new.

I know when Lexar first came out in the early 2000's I had a few that died on me, but I sent them back to the company and they were replaced free of charge.

[fletch]

Originally Posted by mstark70

Do the CF Cards ever wear out or crash?

Yes

Better cards last longer and fail less but they all have a certain life expectancy.

[Doug Pardee]

Two great truisms in life:
1) Everything's temporary.
2) Nothing's perfect.

But CF cards are doggone reliable and durable. While it's possible that you could experience a problem with a CF card, it's not something to worry about.

Notable exception: most of the CF cards sold on eBay are said to be counterfeits, and many of those are said to be defective cards that were rejected by the manufacturer.

Probably the biggest problem with CF cards is not with the card itself, but with the possibility of bending or breaking one of the pins in the camera when inserting the card. I suspect that this is one of the big reasons that Canon and Nikon are shifting from CF to SD/SDHC for their non-pro DSLRs.

Originally Posted by Doug Pardee

Two great truisms in life:
1) Everything's temporary.

Ahhhhh.... A man after my own existential heart! *swoon*

[dcclark]

One way to avoid glitches is to reformat (in camera) every time you download your images. That can avoid a lot of random trouble.

[crunch]

There's a nice post about this exact issue on the DPS blog right now:

http://digital-photography-school.co...p-them-healthy