Canon Rebel XSi/450D announced

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: NTB
This camera is SD-only, correct? If so I guess I'll have to choose between buying new memory cards or going up a level the next time I want a camera body My 2 current cameras are an A80 P&S and a 350D - both use CF cards.

Nathan

Flash memory costs are so low, it's a negligible part of the equation these days.

You can get an 8GB SHDC card from Frys.com for $25 AR. Even if you shoot uncompressed RAW, that's enough for 400+ photos. Closer to 800 shots on fine JPEG; and over 1500 normal JPEG (although I don't ever recommend taking that many shots on a single card without backing up, if possible).

So really, $25 for a new memory card shouldn't be a big part of your buying equation, since you're spending much, much more on bodies and lenses.

 

[Heidfirst]

Currently the fastest SD cards are half as fast as the fastest CF though.
Possibly not an issue for the majority of people interested in this camera but for those interested in photographing sports etc. it may be.

edit: I do almost wonder if this is a deliberate ploy not only to appeal to people trading up from P+S who have SD cards already but as a nudge to get existing Rebel users considering upgrading to go with a 40D rather than a 450D?

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst
Currently the fastest SD cards are half as fast as the fastest CF though.

Which really doesn't matter, because the read/write speeds of the camera (which top out around 7-9MB/s for consumer level DSLRs) are far lower than the maximum speeds of the fastest SD and CF cards.

edit: I do almost wonder if this is a deliberate ploy not only to appeal to people trading up from P+S who have SD cards already but as a nudge to get existing Rebel users considering upgrading to go with a 40D rather than a 450D?

For a compact DSLR like the XSi, the smaller size of a SD card slot allows more room for other components, like a bigger battery. I'm surprised they didn't do it sooner.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: Heidfirst
Currently the fastest SD cards are half as fast as the fastest CF though.

Which really doesn't matter, because the read/write speeds of the camera (which top out around 7-9MB/s for consumer level DSLRs) are far lower than the maximum speeds of the fastest SD and CF cards.

it matters on my A700 (admittedly that can do 5fps & the big difference is the continuous rate after the buffer is full) & there is no reason why that shouldn't trickle down to lower models.

For a compact DSLR like the XSi, the smaller size of a SD card slot allows more room for other components, like a bigger battery.

& yet the body appears to have grown over the 400D anyway.

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst
it matters on my A700 (admittedly that can do 5fps & the big difference is the continuous rate after the buffer is full) & there is no reason why that shouldn't trickle down to lower models.

The XSi will shoot at 3.5fps. Additionally, we're not talking about the difference between the slowest SD card and the fastest CF card; we're comparing the fastest of each type. For the XSi, it simply won't matter if you have a CF card that does 40MB/s when an XSi can't saturate the 20MB/s of the fastest SD card.

& yet the body appears to have grown over the 400D anyway.

Fractionally larger; a bigger screen, bigger viewfinder and bigger grip undoubtedly contributed to some of that.

It's a consumer level DSLR, and almost all consumer level devices (phones, MP3 players, digicams) have adopted SD as their standard. The only reason the compact flash format has survived in the consumer market is on the back of semi-pro and professional DSLR users. Most uses for compact flash these days are in non-consumer applications like embedded computers, data recorders, and other specialized devices that need flash storage with an ATA interface.