Now is a great time to add to your memory card collection. Prices have been falling steadily for the last year, and you can snatch up some very large Compact Flash cards for not a lot of money.
Case in point, Office Depot is offering the SanDisk Ultra II 8GB Compact Flash card for $29.99. No rebates or trickery, just show up and pick the card off the shelf.
Since Summer is coming up, I took advantage of the deal and scored an 8GB card for $31 and change with tax.
I can’t guarantee that all Office Depot locations have the card at this price, but I can tell you that the stores in the Charlotte, NC area are advertising the cards at $29.99 through 4/4/2009. I believe you can also buy the card online as well.
There is a trick to finding the card at this price online. When I searched for Compact Flash cards on the Office Depot website, the Ultra II card did not show up. To actually find the card on the site, I had to open the weekly sales flyer from the Office Depot homepage. The flyer is interactive and the card is shown on page 4. Clicking on the card in the online flyer opens the order page on the Office Depot site.
I had to input my Zip code to see the flyer for my area. If the flyer for your Zip code doesn’t list the card for $29.99, use Zip code 28056.
It’s true this is the Ultra model card, which lacks the performance of the Extreme III cards from SanDisk. From my experience, however, the Ultra cards work very well in the Sony Alpha A350/A300 models. Perhaps the Extreme cards might provide an advantage with the faster continuous rate of the A700 and A900. Even with these cameras, the Ultra cards are more than adequate for most types of shooting.
8GB will store a lot of images, and I wanted a another good size card as a backup, and I felt I couldn’t go very wrong buying a SanDisk card at this price
If you are williing to to forgo instant gratification, MeritlineOnline has the Kingston 16GB Elite Pro 133X Compact Flash for about the same price. Currently they will sell you the Kingston card for $30.99.
I’ve never used a Kingston CF card, so I can’t vouch for how well they work in the Sony Alpha. I have had very good results with Kingston RAM memory and PCI cards in various computers, so I have an overall high opinion of Kingston products.
I have also ordered various gadgets from Meritline in the past. My experience with Merritline has been quite positive. So I wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of this deal either. Especially since MeritLine is offering free standard shipping. There is no indication of how long this price will last, so if you want one, I would act now.
If any Alphatracks readers have experience using Kingston Compact Flash cards (especially the 16GB one) in the Sony Alpha or Minolta Maxxum dSLRs, why not leave a comment with your opinion.
With the price of nearly everything else going up, it is nice to see Compact Flash memory coming down in price. Only a short time ago, a 16GB card would sell for well over $100.00. With this deal, you can have one shipped to you for 31 bucks.
Time to add to your Compact Flash collection!
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9 Comments
I have two Kingston 16GB CF cards and they have worked very reliably in my Alpha 200. I have also used them in my Sony F828. I have used them in a Tascam CF recorder (DA-P2?) with no problems – but I always format them in the device with which they will be used. I bought them from Adorama for $40 with a $40 rebate. So, somebody had my $80 for a 6 weeks.
Steve —
Thanks for the info on the Kingston card. As I said, I had very good experience with Kingston products, but haven’t had a chance to play with a Kingston CF card. The Alphas seem to tolerate most brands of CF cards without a hitch, but I didn’t want to recommend something I didn’t have direct experience with.
Have a great week!
— Tom
Just received the Kingston 16GB card for use in Alpha 300. Seems to work really well so far. Plus it is hard to beat a 16GB CF card for right at $30. I currently live in China and they can’t even touch that price with what they are selling here.
I would recommend the Kingston 16 GB CF card no problem.
I’ve been using 2 & 4Gb Kingston CF cards in my Alpha 100 and 4Gb SD in my Nikon for around 2 years and haven’t had any problems.
Even i never try that, but many peoples say that Kingston is good, maybe someday when the price is great i’ll buy one.
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