Do high-speed CF cards make a difference?

G

GuruX

Gawd
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Jul 8, 2001
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Well I've pretty much settled on the Canon Powershot A95 digicam, but have a question regarding Compactflash memory cards........ Does the speed of the card make a huge difference in terms of how quickly the camera can write to it?

I know Lexar makes some 40x and 80x cards, but is it worth it to spend the extra money for such a card on this camera?
 
Honestly, I've not noticed much of a difference when taking pics, due to the fact that I never bottle-neck the buffer on my 10D anywho. But, when it comes to uploading/reading the pics from the card to the PC, it's a helluva lot faster.

I'm sure that, if you're a "shutterbug" for action shots, you'd find the card's speed an asset? *shrugs*
 
You can get a Sandisk Ultra II for pretty cheap now adays (like 1GB for $100 or less) and they outpreform the 80x lexar. If you ever plan on upgrading, not many cameras write faster than that.
 
Most point & shoot digital cameras won't come close to 40x or 80x speeds for many reasons. But if your computer has USB2.0 and you have a USB2.0 card reader (not a Camera->Computer cable), it could speed up your Card -> Computer transfer rate.

But for under $90, you can't go wrong with a 1GB Sandisk Ultra II. I trust my pictures to it a lot more than a $10-20 cheaper generic/unknown card. The Digital Rebel I am recieving Monday ( 9 day shipping, and I can't wait any longer for it to get here :D ) will enjoy writing this card around 1.25MB/s. (According to http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6425)
 
the CF speed might not come into play too much when you're dealing with cameras like the A95, because their rate of continuous shooting is not that high...
 
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