1GB Cards.... Pretty Cheap

[dsze]

Just came across these on ebay. If I wasn't still trying to explain Wed. night's laptop purchase to the wife...I'd be ordering at least one. They aren't the ultra II, but they are 1GB! $73.99 and then a $15 rebate.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=48526&item=3851121 703&rd=1

-daniel

[Persian-Rice]

Cards are really cheap on ebay.

I recently purchased two 512's Ultra II that came out to $100 Canadian. Here in Canada a single one of those cards comes out to more then I paid for two........

Cheers

[pcasciola]

I can typically find just as good prices or better compared with ebay by doing a quick search on Yahoo shopping. As a matter of fact, I just did a quick search for 1Gb Sandisk and sorted by price, and there are a few places selling them for under $70 before the rebate. Erwincomp has them for $63.95 before the rebate, so that's $48.95 net.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/erwincomputers/san1gbcomfla.html

Just one word of advise for shopping on ebay as well as Yahoo, watch out for "hidden" costs. A lot of people overcharge on shipping or make you get insurance or other "extras" that you don't need. That ebay auction you listed is a good example. USPS 1st class mail is the worst way to ship these things, that guy is making another $5 on the shipping.

Also, make sure you check the performance of a card before you but it, because the $20 savings over the newer card might not be worth it. According to Rob Galbraith, those 1Gb Sandisk "originals" are one of the slowest cards in the 10D, a little more than half the speed of an Ultra II. The 512Mb Sandisk "originals", on the other hand, are almost as fast as the Ultra IIs, only about 10% slower. www.robgalbraith.com

[dsze]

I'm a little confused. I was under the impression that the 10D wasn't able to even write fast enough to make the ultra II's worth having. I haven't ever had a real issue with write speed, so I've never done much research on it myself or really spent any significant time worrying/thinking about it, but this is what I was told my Roberts Camera in Bloomington. He had real cheap "original" sandisk cards and I was going to pay more for the ultra II's and he told me the 10D wouldn't tell a difference B/W the two cards.

-daniel

[Headcase650]

Stuff like this kills me every time I read it. Last july I bought a 1 gig ultraII for $199 that was the cheapest price I could find. A little over 4 months later the prices have droped more than half. :roll:

[Persian-Rice]

Dsze, it shouldn't make a difference. I personally got the ultra II because I know I am upgrading to 1 series. Other then that, their reputation for reliability is great as well.

Does it make differnce in terms of card to pc transfer speed?

[pcasciola]

I'm a little confused. I was under the impression that the 10D wasn't able to even write fast enough to make the ultra II's worth having. I haven't ever had a real issue with write speed, so I've never done much research on it myself or really spent any significant time worrying/thinking about it, but this is what I was told my Roberts Camera in Bloomington. He had real cheap "original" sandisk cards and I was going to pay more for the ultra II's and he told me the 10D wouldn't tell a difference B/W the two cards.
-daniel

What the salesman told you is somewhat correct, but he is making assumptions on how you shoot. If you never fill your buffer and never shoot in RAW mode, then you will probably not see a difference. Where you would always notice a big difference is transferring the card to the computer, assuming you have a USB 2.0 or firewire reader, or a cardbus adapter for your laptop. That could be the difference between a 20 minute download and a 5 minute download. Plus, again, is it worth saving $20 for a card that will be half the speed if you decide to upgrade your 10D one day to a camera where you would then notice the huge speed difference.

It just happens to be that the original Sandisk 1Gb is one of the slowest rated cards on the 10D. There are at least 20-30 other cards that are within 10% of each other on the 10D.

Here are the numbers from Rob Galbraith on the 10D:

Sandisk Standard 1GB (Edge stamp: BB0205NK CHINA)
JPEG: 864K/sec RAW: 806K/sec

Sandisk Ultra II 1GB (Edge stamp: BB0306VZ CHINA)
JPEG: 1.353MB/sec RAW: 1.317MB/sec

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6111

[pcasciola]

Oh, I forgot to mention, we did some of these tests on a friends 10D, worst case scenario, filling the buffer and then timing how long it took to empty. The difference between his older Sandisk (256 or 512, I can't remember) and my 1Gb Ultra II were almost nothing. It's just that 1Gb original Sandisk which has been pegged as the runt of the litter. The 512Mb original Sandisk is actually about 50% faster than the 1Gb version of the same card.

[dsze]

Gotcha. That makes more sense and fits with what I was thinking anyway. The last two cards I've purchased have both been Ultra II's because I too, plan on gettting a 1-series one of these days.... or years.. :)

-daniel