Best Digital Camera Media

[mrlayance]

What do you think?

 

[igowerf]

Like compact flash vs. secure digital?

Canon and Nikon both use CF in their cameras so I prefer CF.

 

[wedi42]

compact flash.
its one of the oldest formats and its still running strong.
also has the largest capacities and the best price.

 

[BigSmooth]

I believe xD (Fuji & Olympus' format) has many advantages such as a small form factor, fast read/writes, low power usage, and up to 8GB theoretical capacity. Plus, you can use them with CF devices if you have an adaptor. Prices were kind of high but they are coming down rapidly.

The larger capacity cards will be very nice as cameras continue to increase in MP and as people use them for movie clips. It would also be nice to use in PDAs/cell phones/mp3 devices.

That said, CF is still much cheaper and used more widely, so for now I think it is the "best" overall.

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: johngute
compact flash.
its one of the oldest formats and its still running strong.
also has the largest capacities and the best price.

Agreed. While it may not be THE BEST, it has been around for a long time, is in abundant supply, cheap (256MB for $30), and works in most Pocket PC PDA's.

I also like xD, SM, SD, MMC anything BUT Sony's MemoryStick media.

 

[Maverick]

xD is just way too expensive IMO. What we need is a next generation compact flash that is still compatible w/o old cameras but won't work at the newer speeds. The same kind of evolution we saw in USB 1.1 -> USB 2.0

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: RossMAN

Originally posted by: johngute
compact flash.
its one of the oldest formats and its still running strong.
also has the largest capacities and the best price.

Agreed. While it may not be THE BEST, it has been around for a long time, is in abundant supply, cheap (256MB for $30), and works in most Pocket PC PDA's.

I also like xD, SM, SD, MMC anything BUT Sony's MemoryStick media.

Same here. Best "All Round" is CF. Memory Sticks suck.

 

[BigSmooth]

Originally posted by: Maverick
xD is just way too expensive IMO. What we need is a next generation compact flash that is still compatible w/o old cameras but won't work at the newer speeds. The same kind of evolution we saw in USB 1.1 -> USB 2.0

I think it's only expensive because it's the newest format, though. I've seen the deals get better and better over the last year. I'm sure it will keep coming down because the cards are "dumb" like SmartMedia so the manufacturing costs can't be that high.

 

[NickE]

Originally posted by: Maverick
xD is just way too expensive IMO. What we need is a next generation compact flash that is still compatible w/o old cameras but won't work at the newer speeds. The same kind of evolution we saw in USB 1.1 -> USB 2.0

The new Write Acceleration CF cards from Lexar might fit the bill?

Lexar website

 

[GTaudiophile]

Canon uses CompactFlash, so that has pretty much become the standard. Whether it's the best, I cannot say. It's not the most expensive, I know that. But it's also the bulkiest of them all.

 

[KokomoGST]

Whatever fits the camera you're using...

 

[theNEOone]

i like secure digital, but maybe i'm bias because my laptop has a built in SD card reader - super convenient for transfering pictures and such. more seriously though, the transfer speeds are ridiculous - it feels almost instantaneous. i don't know what the actual speed of the card is, but i just transferred 36 megs from the card to my lappy in less than a second. i'll post again when i fill up on 256mb of memory - maybe i'll be able to get more accurate estimates.


=|

 

[Chadder007]

CompactFlash 4X 600KB/Sec
CompactFlash 8X 1.2MB/Sec
CompactFlash 12X 1.8MB/Sec
CompactFlash 24X 3.6MB/Sec
Smart Media 600KB/Sec
MultiMedia Card 300KB/Sec
Secure Digital Media 1.5MB/Sec
Memory Stick 800KB/Sec
xD Picture Card 600KB/Sec


....looking at these speeds it makes me wonder why MP3 players don't use the CompactFlash format for transfering over MP3s and why Panasonic is sticking to SD instead of 24x CF for their no tape MPEG2/4 Camcorders.

 

[BigSmooth]

Originally posted by: Chadder007

xD Picture Card 600KB/Sec

Don't mean to bang the xD drum too loudly here, but A 16MB or 32MB card can record data at 1.3MB/sec. A 64MB card or higher can record data at 3MB/sec and both offer a read speed of 5MB/sec. (from Fuji and Olympus press releases)

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: BigSmooth

Originally posted by: Chadder007

xD Picture Card 600KB/Sec

Don't mean to bang the xD drum too loudly here, but A 16MB or 32MB card can record data at 1.3MB/sec. A 64MB card or higher can record data at 3MB/sec and both offer a read speed of 5MB/sec. (from Fuji and Olympus press releases)

....then again I did get that info from Toms Hardware. ha.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Chadder007
CompactFlash 4X 600KB/Sec
CompactFlash 8X 1.2MB/Sec
CompactFlash 12X 1.8MB/Sec
CompactFlash 24X 3.6MB/Sec
Smart Media 600KB/Sec
MultiMedia Card 300KB/Sec
Secure Digital Media 1.5MB/Sec
Memory Stick 800KB/Sec
xD Picture Card 600KB/Sec


....looking at these speeds it makes me wonder why MP3 players don't use the CompactFlash format for transfering over MP3s and why Panasonic is sticking to SD instead of 24x CF for their no tape MPEG2/4 Camcorders.

I have some super-fast SanDisk Ultra II 60X CompactFlash media. Real-life read speed is 30X (4.5 MB/s) and real-life write speed is 27X.

I also recently bought some Lexar 12X media. Interestingly, real-life read speed is 26X (4.0 MB/s) and real-life write speed is 15X (2.3 MB/s).

 

[jaydee]

I like SmartMedia, primarily because it fits in my camera. It's fairly cheap as well and before xD's came out, it seemed like it was the most widely used (can't prove it though, so I could be wrong). It is limited to 128MB's (I believe), which is a problem if you have a 5mp camera that needs to take full resolution TIFF's, but for my 3mp Oly C-3020z, it's just fine. I got a card reader (reads CF as well) for it for $9 shipped today, so that's another plus (xD's are waay more).

xD does seem to be the future though. Hope they come down in price...

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: Chadder007
CompactFlash 4X 600KB/Sec
CompactFlash 8X 1.2MB/Sec
CompactFlash 12X 1.8MB/Sec
CompactFlash 24X 3.6MB/Sec
Smart Media 600KB/Sec
MultiMedia Card 300KB/Sec
Secure Digital Media 1.5MB/Sec
Memory Stick 800KB/Sec
xD Picture Card 600KB/Sec


....looking at these speeds it makes me wonder why MP3 players don't use the CompactFlash format for transfering over MP3s and why Panasonic is sticking to SD instead of 24x CF for their no tape MPEG2/4 Camcorders.

I have some super-fast SanDisk Ultra II 60X CompactFlash media. Real-life read speed is 30X (4.5 MB/s) and real-life write speed is 27X.

I also recently bought some Lexar 12X media. Interestingly, real-life read speed is 26X (4.0 MB/s) and real-life write speed is 15X (2.3 MB/s).

I have the same card. It's inanely fast compared to the probably 4X card the camera came with.

My brother also got the UltraII for his G5.. heh.

 

[BigSmooth]

Originally posted by: jaydee
I like SmartMedia, primarily because it fits in my camera. It's fairly cheap as well and before xD's came out, it seemed like it was the most widely used (can't prove it though, so I could be wrong). It is limited to 128MB's (I believe), which is a problem if you have a 5mp camera that needs to take full resolution TIFF's, but for my 3mp Oly C-3020z, it's just fine. I got a card reader (reads CF as well) for it for $9 shipped today, so that's another plus (xD's are waay more).

xD does seem to be the future though. Hope they come down in price...

I think I remember reading that SM had 40% of the worldwide market in 2001. But you're right, 128MB is the max, plus the cards are a bit on the slow and fragile side. Can't beat the prices, though!

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: KokomoGST
Whatever fits the camera you're using...

^^^