card/reader questions...

Firstly and more of a rant... Why are the bloody extreme memory cards sold out everywhere I look?!!?!?!

But more realistically....

Is it faster to download a memory card from a dedicated reader or just as fast from in camera? assuming both are USB, I imagine firewire is faster but I am thinking of USB.

Thanks and peace!

I always use a dedicated reader to transfer images from card to camera. Reason being less wear and tear on the camera. Also older camera are probably usb 1.1, so transfer will be very slow.

Note that not all card readers are made equal. Some transfer faster than others even if it does say they use USB 2.0. I've recently got the sandisk card readers and they fully utilize the transfer rate of the cards. They aren't much more than a regular card reader, so why not.

Do you think that there is much difference between a USB2 and Firewire with an Extreme3 ?

Thanks.

I think i bought the last Extreme IV 4gb of amazon, sorry
The sandisk site say the extreme IV (fastest one they do) can be read and written at 60meg/sec i think, however if you read the reviews its actually written by the 30D at 7meg/sec.

You will still see benefits of speed from using the sandisk firewire card reader with extreme 3, but I don't think it will make a huge impact in the time it takes for you to transfer files. But if you were downloading large cards (4+ gigs) and a few of them, it might save you a couple of minutes.

USB2 is faster than firewire 400. Firewire 800 is faster than usb2.

My card reader got nicked. I had a lacie 4in1 which was brilliant. The advantage of using the card reader for me was when I was working at a club. I'd set up the laptop by the mixing console, shoot the band fill the card, stick the card in the reader and let the laptop download while I stuck another card in the camera and continued shooting. Just swapping over cards the whole time and I had a continuous workflow. Plus the battery on the camera was used to take pictures and not for downloading to laptop.

She - got to get a new card reader

shesgotthepic wrote in post #2830377
USB2 is faster than firewire 400. Firewire 800 is faster than usb2.

While USB2 is capable of faster transfer rates than Firewire 400, in reality Firewire 400 is consistently faster. See this: http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm

magicmikey wrote in post #2830496
While USB2 is capable of faster transfer rates than Firewire 400, in reality Firewire 400 is consistently faster. See this: http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm

my firewire lacie drive is slower than my friends usb2 drive. I had both plugged in and there was a difference.

Go figure.

shesgotthepic wrote in post #2830377
Firewire 800 is faster than usb2.

That's good then...
I'm getting an imac (24) next month which is FW800. Would like the MacPro but I need a screen too, which I can't afford if I get the MacPro.

My Ultra's and Extreme's are 4g, so with a FW800 reader and 24" iMac I should be pretty happy!

Thanks everyone for the info.