Being screwed over at Angkor by Kingston 4GB Elite Pro 45X


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hi.. just a question.. does the new 4G card mentioned that it supports all CF card based cameras ? :think:
 

Dear Posters,

Just came back from Siem Reap today, extremely disappointed. I had purchased a Kingston 4GB Elite Pro 45X (the one with the chameleon on it) for my Canon 300D and was hoping to get some wonderful pictures of Angkor and Bayon. Which I did. I got close to about 500 shots before the compact flash card failed. There was around 600 plus shots or so remaining.

What happened was everytime when I tried to shoot, I get an image corrupted error and you could see the camera trying to find or read the image but it just drew a blank. The pictures I take after that would appear but then just slowly fade altogether. The display would show something like stripes then dissapear. I was also unable to view all my earlier photos that I took. The camera would be struggling to find the images (red light blinking) but nothing appears eventually. I tried deleting all the images that had been corrupted cos I thought that they might be jamming up the camera, but still I encountered the same problem.

I was fortunate to still have my trusty 1GB Hagiwara card and continued shooting, but the worry of losing all my precious images was haunting me for the rest my trip. Much of my concentration was affected too and I was really distracted by what had happened so far. I got back to the hotel to try the card again a couple of times but still the card did not display any images. I just got back home and fortunately I managed to recover my images! The thing which amazes me even more, is that the card now seems to be working. I think there must be some issues with consistency due to the inconsistent results I am getting. This is the first time that I am encountering such an issue, so i think there must be some problems with this card or some bad sectors somewhere.

The best thing was after I bought my card, I bumped into Nic from the Camera Workshop, he told me that this particular Kingston CF card had lots of problems but I was thinking how sway can you be right? First time you buy and then it crashes or hangs on you, highly unlikely right? absolutely wrong! It happened to me after my first 500 shots and I was hugely disappointed with the reliability of Kingston and would never purchase them anymore. Even my old regular 1GB Hagiwara lasted me without any problems and I was lucky I had it with me. I thought CF technology would have improved by now, how wrong i was with Kingson! I will try to go get it exchanged, but now it seems to be working so i don't know what to say to the guy in the store but i am convinced that the card is screwed. At best I will try to swap for some other brands. Even if they give me a new one, I will seriously have doubts about it's reliability, and not want to use it anymore.

Please beware of this product. Bring along a hard drive to store your pictures for insurance as well as other CF cards with you. Has any of you Club Snappers faced the same problems or do you think that I am just one of those "lucky" few who happened to strike "gold" at the first attempt? You comments are most welcome.

Thanks,

Nawin

Gee. That's really bad to learn about Kingston products of your unfortunate incident. I guess the manufacturer allows you to capture up to 500 images and the rest is free lunch for the chameleon. Cheer up buddy. Thanks for sharing. I will never buy Kingston products.
 

hi.. just a question.. does the new 4G card mentioned that it supports all CF card based cameras ? :think:

Firstly, to fully use all 4GB of space in the card, the camera must support FAT32. Some of the older CF-based cameras may only support FAT16 (max size = 2GB).
Also, there is the question of compatibility, which is difficult to gauge unless you try it out yourself. The manufacturers are not always helpful because they don't always update their compatibility charts for their older cameras when new media sizes are released.
Maybe can search around to see if anyone with your camera has tried it out.
 

Gee. That's really bad to learn about Kingston products of your unfortunate incident. I guess the manufacturer allows you to capture up to 500 images and the rest is free lunch for the chameleon. Cheer up buddy. Thanks for sharing. I will never buy Kingston products.

Just because someone highlighted his unfortunate experience with the Kingston card, you are going to give the brand a miss? It makes the brand looks bad in the eyes of some people but it depends on how u look at it. I am sure others also have similar experiences with cards of other brands. Does that mean that you are also going to give those brands a miss also when u hear about it? Then you end up with no brands of cards u can use. Safer to switch back for film for you in this case. :bsmilie: Common on, every product has its fair share of lemons. Have u seen a few months-old BMW or Mercedes breakdown on the road?
 

Gee. That's really bad to learn about Kingston products of your unfortunate incident. I guess the manufacturer allows you to capture up to 500 images and the rest is free lunch for the chameleon. Cheer up buddy. Thanks for sharing. I will never buy Kingston products.
 

Normal " suayness".
Expect the unexpected.
What should not happen, will happen. :p

Bro once took his Slik 550DX Pro tripod overseas. Was proudly showing it off at the airport, before he realised he forgot to bring the Quick Release Plate. LOL>
 

Kingston flah memory cards seem to be very prone to failure. I had 2 SD cards, and both gave me problems, sold them off after RMA. Still have a Kingston CF card, but don't dare to use liao. Now stick to only Sandisk.

On a separate note, been using Kingston RAMs on several PCs and a laptop, never had any problem all these years. Also using a Kingston thumbdrive.
 

Firstly, to fully use all 4GB of space in the card, the camera must support FAT32. Some of the older CF-based cameras may only support FAT16 (max size = 2GB).
Also, there is the question of compatibility, which is difficult to gauge unless you try it out yourself. The manufacturers are not always helpful because they don't always update their compatibility charts for their older cameras when new media sizes are released.
Maybe can search around to see if anyone with your camera has tried it out.

yes yes. most older cameras can only use memory up to 2gb. maybe that's the reason why nawin can only use about 50% of the space... look out for firmware upgrades. usually that will take care of this.
 

switch to sandisk ultraII. its much better
 

hahaa..i got the same card...and it died on me on one my my assignments (metinks the 3rd time using it)...just suddenly cannot write to it...files all gone too...though managed to recover...

the good thing was that there were only 20 shots in it... HENG.... the bad thing was...i got it when it first came out at 360 bucks...and it took them about 1-2 months to give me back a new piece.... by that time....i guess the price dropped :D

have been using my new piece since then....so far so good...
 

IMO, only 2 brand of card is good. Lexar and Sandisk :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: . I will not risk my photos for the cheaper prices of other brands. Money cannot buy precious moments captured in the photo. Imagine if you shoot your friend's wedding and your card failed at the end of the day without backing up... :angry: ;( Safest way is to invest a good card and backup frequently.
 

2 x 1gb Lexar40x (2yrs), 1x 1gb SandiskUltraII (1yr), and recently, 1x 2gbTwinMos120x(6mths), all without problems so far. I actually shoot till "CF Full" on all the cards, saved to Nixvue, verify, and pop back into the 30D body, "format" and carry on shooting. After a few shoots, I practically trust all of them even without backup to Nixvue.

I guess you may be just unlucky..
 

used Kingston 1GB pro Elite and 2GB Ultimate for my 350D for my recent angkor trip. with no problem at all.
 

I don't think the problem's just with Kingston - something similar happened to me with a Lexar 2GB CF card, and also in Angkor. (Hey.. maybe there's something in the Angkor air.......)

I guess moral of the story is to just use as many 1GB cards as possible so even if (touch wood) something fails, it's just 100+ shots, as opposed to 200+ or 500+. Also, if your card fails, what you should do is NOT use it at all anymore, then bring it back to the manufacturer who might be able to recover the data. I managed to recover about 3/4 of my photos. Unfortunately I really wanted most of the ones in the last 1/4 that was corrupt but hey some is better than none right?

I think if you continue trying to use the card, it continues to write on it which makes the data even harder to retrieve.

Oh well.
 

I don't think the problem's just with Kingston - something similar happened to me with a Lexar 2GB CF card, and also in Angkor. (Hey.. maybe there's something in the Angkor air.......)

haha..... twilight zone?....
I was at the La Phrom temple (the one with giant trees eating up the temples) when i discovered that i didnt charge my "spare battery" and so was unable to shoot anything there ..... but strangely after when I reached AW for the sunset, my "dead" batteries could fire up another 100 shots! .......:sweat:
 

haha..... twilight zone?....
I was at the La Phrom temple (the one with giant trees eating up the temples) when i discovered that i didnt charge my "spare battery" and so was unable to shoot anything there ..... but strangely after when I reached AW for the sunset, my "dead" batteries could fire up another 100 shots! .......:sweat:
Really?? happened to me there too. i forgot my spare and my battery was down to 1 bar..had to borrow a spare from another photographer haha
 

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