MTalley
23rd of May 2005 (Mon), 22:54
I invested in a couple of Sandisk Ultra II CF's for my Drebel. The tests were right - the DRebel is just slow to write to CF no matter what.
I did a very crude test. I have an older PNY 256MB flash card that I freshly formatted and took a few pictures with the camera sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Using the wall clock, with it's loud tick, I roughly timed this card out at 3.5 seconds per write. I did this by clicking the shutter button right when the clock ticked and counted the subsequent ticks. The card access light finally went off about halfway between the 3rd and 4th ticks.
Without moving the camera from the same position, I removed the stock PNY, inserted the fresh, new Ultra II (512MB) card, formatted it and performed the same test again (three times, to make sure). Still about 3.5 seconds per image. If it was any faster, it couldn't have been more than about .2 seconds.
However, I do notice a substantial difference in copying images from the CF to my computer, using a Lexar multi-card reader, even though my laptop only supports USB 1.1.
My biggest consolation was that, with recent discount pricing at Dell on select CF cards, I bought two 512 MB Ultra II's for about the same price ($89.99 US, shipped) than a standard Sandisk 1GB card (which was not on the select list). I would've bought one 1GB Ultra II, but the indicated shipping date was "2 to 4 weeks" where the 512's shipped next day.
I did a very crude test. I have an older PNY 256MB flash card that I freshly formatted and took a few pictures with the camera sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Using the wall clock, with it's loud tick, I roughly timed this card out at 3.5 seconds per write. I did this by clicking the shutter button right when the clock ticked and counted the subsequent ticks. The card access light finally went off about halfway between the 3rd and 4th ticks.
Without moving the camera from the same position, I removed the stock PNY, inserted the fresh, new Ultra II (512MB) card, formatted it and performed the same test again (three times, to make sure). Still about 3.5 seconds per image. If it was any faster, it couldn't have been more than about .2 seconds.
However, I do notice a substantial difference in copying images from the CF to my computer, using a Lexar multi-card reader, even though my laptop only supports USB 1.1.
My biggest consolation was that, with recent discount pricing at Dell on select CF cards, I bought two 512 MB Ultra II's for about the same price ($89.99 US, shipped) than a standard Sandisk 1GB card (which was not on the select list). I would've bought one 1GB Ultra II, but the indicated shipping date was "2 to 4 weeks" where the 512's shipped next day.