Video: PhotoFast CR-7000 SDHC to CF adapter takes on 5D Mark II, lives to burst about it

While we love those fast, high-capacity CompactFlash cards guaranteed to capture every frame of HD video shot by modern DSLRs, occasionally it would be nice to process those pixels to an SDHC card. The convenience of SD or the fact that you likely have more than a few unused cards lying around is enough justification to switch, at least temporarily. Fortunately, Akihabara News did a quick hands-on demonstration of the PhotoFast CR-7000 doing the SDHC-to-CF adapter thing inside of Canon's ultra-quick 5D Mark II. Sure, it won't capture 1080p video, but it seems to handle bursting reasonable well in a pinch. Check the full read over at Aki after peeping the video after the break.

[Willen Posted Aug 21st 2009 4:52AM]

Too bad he didn't have any class 6 or 10 cards around to test it with. Now that would have made reading the link more interesting.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 21st 2009 8:56AM]

Agreed. This isn't much of a test of the adapter's capability if anything less than Class 6 SDHC is used.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 21st 2009 6:27AM]

Bummer about the video. I reckon as Willen said class6/10 would of done it although I would have thought a burst of raw images (~25MB per image @ 3fps) would be more entensive then ~5MB/s video

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 21st 2009 7:24AM]

I have used the Micro-SD to SD adapters in cameras before -- I would get random memory card errors at startup requiring removal and reinstallation of the card before it would work. Fujifilm recommends up-front NOT to use these adapters in your camera for just this very reason.

I hope the manufacturer has the bugs worked out and not to put some photographer's needed work in jeopardy by having a read/write error while taking a valuable shot.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 21st 2009 7:39AM]

Would this be compatible with the Eye-Fi sd-cards? If it was then that would be a really cheap way of getting wireless tethered shooting.

[magallanes Posted Aug 21st 2009 8:49AM]

is CF still in used?

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 21st 2009 8:52AM]

You're kidding, right? All Canon and Nikon pro-level (that is, marketed to pro) DSLRs use CF. L2Google.

[magallanes Posted Aug 21st 2009 9:04AM]

its good to known.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 21st 2009 9:49AM]

I suppose it's not a bad thing to have in your camera bag. The test only shows that the adapter can be used. The 5DMII has a Large JPEG burst of around 70 continuous captures, which gets written to the internal buffer and cleared to the card (it goes to unlimited if you use a UDMA CF card). How long it takes to write to the card to clear the buffer is the real bottleneck with cards (as well as the download).

[nrb Posted Aug 21st 2009 10:43AM]

In case you have some SD cards lying around?

That seems backwards. CF has been around longer and you're more likely to have those lying around. The only purpose I can see for this device is future proofing. If your crystal ball says that SD will continue to be the way of the future, you may want to buy them for your DSLR instead of CF.

[Plothole Posted Aug 21st 2009 10:17PM]

Most consumer level dSLRs today use SD. With this they wouldn't have to buy new cards if they ever decided to move to a higher end model.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 21st 2009 11:37AM]

"Ultra-quick" 5D Mkii? Hardly. I own this camera, love it, pay the bills with it, but I wouldn't dare call it ultra-quick. 1d Mkiii, now THAT is ultra-quick. Hell, the step-down 50D is quicker in regards to burst speed.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 21st 2009 3:49PM]

Completely crap. He couldn't even get a class 6 or 10 card just to try it with?

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 21st 2009 7:49PM]

They stopped filmed before it was done writing to the card (the red light after the burst). My issue isn't how many photos I can take in a row, its how long I have to wait for it to finish writing to the card before I can take more.