High Speed Compact Flash Cards

[gpocock]

Hello


I've just moved up from an IXUS 400 to an S70. Lots of potential but I clearly need bigger memory cards.

Is there any advantage in buying high speed cards such as the Lexar Pro - can the camera deal with them - or would I be better sticking to 12x cards?


Yours

Geoffrey

[Andyman]

I'm afraid I can't comment on the S70 but there's some good memory speed comparisons for selection of other cameras at http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007. This might give you some indication of the potential gains.

Regards,
Andy.

[ukcommando]

Hello


I've just moved up from an IXUS 400 to an S70. Lots of potential but I clearly need bigger memory cards.

Is there any advantage in buying high speed cards such as the Lexar Pro - can the camera deal with them - or would I be better sticking to 12x cards?


Yours

Geoffrey

The BIGGEST difference you would notice with higher speed cards is a dramatic reduction in the time between shots because the camera can save the images much faster. It also helps when you're transferring to the PC! :)

I'd say go for it. PQI 40x are a good choice!

Dave
ukcommando

[Zekevarg]

The BIGGEST difference you would notice with higher speed cards is a dramatic reduction in the time between shots because the camera can save the images much faster. It also helps when you're transferring to the PC! :)

I'd say go for it. PQI 40x are a good choice!

Dave
ukcommando

The speed to save a picture is individual between each camera, this is related to the bus and buffer design for accessing the flash card. Generally, compact digital cameras do not currently benefit from the more expensive high speed memory cards.

Cheers, Zeke

[ukcommando]

The speed to save a picture is individual between each camera, this is related to the bus and buffer design for accessing the flash card. Generally, compact digital cameras do not currently benefit from the more expensive high speed memory cards.

Cheers, Zeke


I agree that internal design has a major influence but having tried two different speed cards in a powershot, I can confirm that I did see a noticeable difference.

Also there have been huge price drops in the price of CF over the last 18 months (especially if you shop around online rather than buying from the local store) so cost shouldn't need to be a major factor in the decision.

[Jon]

A slow camera may not be able to take full advantage of the fastest card out there, but the faster card will be able to take full advantage of the camera's data bus where a slower card may not. So a faster card can, even on a slow camera, speed things up by moving the bottleneck. If you go to Rob Galbraith's site (linked above), you'll see that while the Digital Rebel can't write to a SanDisk Ultra II card as fast as a 20D can, it still writes to that faster than it will to a regular SanDisk red/blue card.