16gb CF card in a 7D- will not format

[James Alan McAleer]

Hello all,

I'm trying to use a brand new RED 16gb CF card in (my wife's:smile5 Canon 7d. The Canon will not recognise or format the card.
I've tried the card in my RED ONE- no problems, I've formatted and re-tried using my mac, no problems, I've even shot stills with it on an older canon DSLR- but can't get it to work with the 7D.

Perhaps this is the wrong place to post this! however is there a reason this won't work that I don't know about? I'm led to believe that the RED CF cards are the best (fastest) around, which is why I recommended that my wife bought one for her 7D.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you might have.

J

 

[Richard Foster]

Not an expert here, but Red cards have special firmware that is probably not compatible with the Canon 7D. And you don't need that much speed for the Canon. I use good Sandisk high speed cards on my Nikon D7000 and only use the Red cards on my Red.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I've seen that the solution can be to FAT32 format them on a Mac or PC first, and THEN format them in camera.

That procedure will have to be repeated if you want to use them on the RED again, as well...

 

[D Fuller]

I use 8G Red cards in my Nikons all the time. I was never able to make 16G cards work.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The 16GB cards only support a few select modes of operation. Most devices can't communicate with them. They're not designed like a commodity CF card for broad compatibility, their designed to support the proper 32bit UDMA block modes used by the RED One. Most good readers can still work with them -- Lexar, RED's own CF reader, Sonnet, etc..

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I use 8G Red cards in my Nikons all the time. I was never able to make 16G cards work.

The 16GB's work fine in my Nikon D 200...

 

[D Fuller]

The 16GB's work fine in my Nikon D 200...

Interesting. I couldn't make either a D300 or a D3s format them. But they're gone now in any case, sold to help pay for SSDs.

 

[Billy Summers]

The RED 16's have never worked in my 5D...

 

[Ron Steinberg]

Reviving an old thread. Just received a 16G Red CF card, trying to format it in my Canon 5D Mark 2, no luck. Has anyone got this to work on a 5D II?

 

[Todd T]

It is not going to work, you should re-read Jeff's comment:

The 16GB cards only support a few select modes of operation. Most devices can't communicate with them. They're not designed like a commodity CF card for broad compatibility, their designed to support the proper 32bit UDMA block modes used by the RED One. Most good readers can still work with them -- Lexar, RED's own CF reader, Sonnet, etc..

 

[Ron Steinberg]

Yup, I read that. Also saw that Gunleik had them working in his Nikon D200 so was hopeful. Jarred also stated that he uses his 8G CF's in dslrs all of the time.

Oh well, I'll use it on my Red One, when I finally get one.

It is not going to work, you should re-read Jeff's comment:

 

[ericyoung]

The 8GB CFs were specially selected sustained write speed Lexar cards rebadged, so would behave like Lexar cards, whereas the 16GB cards were made by Red specifically for Red cameras so, as observed, compatibility is more limited.

 

[Ron Steinberg]

Thanks for the explanation. Will reserve the 16G for my future Red One. At least it's able to be read by my ancient Sandisk card reader.

The 8GB CFs were specially selected sustained write speed Lexar cards rebadged, so would behave like Lexar cards, whereas the 16GB cards were made by Red specifically for Red cameras.