CompactFlash I

[stiltman]

How much does it really matter on the transfer X?

My cmera came with 8X and I just picked up a 256mb 4X.
I was reading a few sites and my camera maxes out at 8X
Will I notice much of a difference between 4X and 8X?
If I open the sealed package, I don't think I'll be able to return it. At best it will prolly be a store credit

[racer-x]

As far as I know, that relates to the read/write speed of the card. So you'll end up with a little longer lagtime between shots for the camera to write the file to the card. It may take a little longer for transfers, but I'm not sure.

My camera uses both XD and Compact Flash cards. The XD's are much faster and much more expensive. I use the XD's for Sequencial shooting modes, where I can shoot up to 3 fps for a 4 shot burst @ full resolution. It then takes about 7 sec for the camera to dump the buffer to the XD card. For the Compact Flash card, it takes around 10 sec I believe.

[stiltman]

Just an update.

Seems only a couple of companies use the X speed for a selling point. Lexar and Sandisk are the most prominate. I bought a Lexar 256mb card from Fry's for $50 and then checked it speed after the fact. It ended up being 2x (300KB/sec). Well I returned that sucker as my 16mb 4X Sandisk is in my mind slow. When I went back to return it (no problem) I noticed that they had some Kingston 256mb on sale for $35 with a $15 rebate (I didn't buy it for the rebate though). Kingston doesn't use the X speed rating, it actually didn't say what speed it was on the package. Searched the web and it turns out it's 3mb/sec that's about 20x

Who knew buying flash media was so confussing too

[vitualis]

CompactFlash is not slow if you buy the right card and your camera supports it.

Sandisk Ultra II / Extreme CF cards are very fast (around 10 MB/s) and you won't find another other flash media (SD/xD/MS/etc.) commonly available that is any faster. There are similarly fast CF cards from Lexar, Panasonic, others.

In addition, the fastest CF cards are WAY cheaper than similarly sized and fast SD/xD/MS cards.

Simply put, CF is the media of choice for professional digital SLRs... hardly slow.

Regards.

[stiltman]

Simply put, CF is the media of choice for professional digital SLRs... hardly slow.

Regards.

Oh, I know the new stuff is fast, but unfortunately my card will not support the new stuff. I just have a coolpix 4300...

You can say 2x is slow compared to 20x and 20x is slow compared to the new ultra cards....That would make 2x extremely slow compared to the new stuff 8)