The only difference I’ve noticed between different speed compact flash cards is the price. Well, the only difference I’ve ever noticed until right now.

I recently went on a vacation without my laptop (I’m not sure it’d have qualified as a vacation otherwise), and, I took along two 32gb Kingston CF cards. I figured it was enough for two weeks recreational shooting.

But- half way through I had only 8gb left free, so, on a stop in the tax-free US Virgin Islands I picked up a Dane-elec 32gb CF card for $60. Seemed like a great price, and worked just as well as the Kingston cards in camera.

The difference came when I got home, and needed to download all the cards. My Kingston cards dumped all their shots to my hard drive in 45 minutes or so, but the Dane-elec card took a little under six hours to dump onto my computer. (The screenshot pictured is from another shoot, post-vacation.)