Photofocus

Lexar continues to innovate. I got my hands on one of their new Lexar Professional Series 600X CompactFlash® Card 32GB CF cards, using UDMA 6 technology last month. I don’t have any fancy testing equipment, but I do have a little experience with flash memory and my experience tells me this is one fast little puppy. I also have a stop watch!

While Lexar announced these cards late last year, it took me a while to get one. I also got the Lexar Professional ExpressCard CF Reader. Combining the ExpressCard reader with the 600x card and you might as well be in a jet plane!

The card comes with Image Rescue 4 and offers a lifetime warranty. It’s also available in an 8GB and 16GB model.

Do you need this 600x speed? That depends. Not all cameras support UDMA, let alone UDMA 6. Some cameras that do? Canon 7D, Canon 5D MK II, Nikon D3s/x, Nikon D300s. Check to see if your camera offers UDMA 6 support.

While you might expect that 600x cards would be twice as fast as 300x cards that’s not true. The Canon 5D MK II for instance shows a 30% speed increase over 300x cards in a continuous burst mode shooting RAW. The Nikon D3x offers a 27% speed increase using the same files. The 7D sees the best results at 50% speed increase.

There may be a faster card/card reader combo out there – but if there is, I can’t find it. If you need and can afford the speed, highly recommended.

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This post sponsored by the Digital SLR Store