Compact flash speed.

[insurancepi]

Could someone please tell me what the speed of the compact flash has to do with, writing to the camera, or writing to the computer during image transfer? Just curious.

[CoolToolGuy]

Both - although typically the camera is writing to the card.

The speed of the CF card relates to how fast the card can handle reading and writing of data. On the camera end, it partially affects how long the 'write light' blinks after each shot. Partially, because the camera also has a 'speed', and it can only write data so fast.

The 1DMKII and the 20D utilize new capabilities to write data faster than the previous Canon DSLRs, and they can make use of the capabilities of the fast CF cards. The speed of the card also affects the frames per second after the buffer fills up.

On the computer end, card speed affects the time it takes to write the images to your hard drive or bring them into your image editing program.

Hope this helps.

Have Fun,