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Comparing Compact Flash card types
I'm shopping for a high capacity (512MB or 1 gig) for my new canon S1
IS, (I want to use its 640x480 movie capability, necessitating high capacity). I see a few types on the market, I'm asking for info from those that have experience or knowledge. I'm leaving brand name considerations out, so as not to muddy the issue. So far, it looks like the only significant difference between type I and type II is the physical size; so if I get a type II it won't fit in my old canon SD110. No biggy, really, I've resigned myself to get a type II. The S1 IS takes either one. So my concern is that I believe that taking movies may REQUIRE a 'high speed' CF card, and the best I can deduce is that the regular type will write maybe 6MB/sec, 'ultra' will write at 9MB/sec, the 'extreme' claims 16MB/sec, but also has inernal recovery s/w if the card fails. A 512Mb CF card, roughly, goes for: regular type II, 100-125$. Ultra type II, 175$. Extreme type II, 250$ !!! Obviously, I'd rather not spend more money for speed I don't need, I would think there's a memory buffer in the camera that acts as a reservoir while it's filming, writing to the flash card as the flash card can take it. But if there's any risk at all that the card is the week point, I'm willing to spend the extra money for the 'ultra'. The 'extreme' sounds nice, but as we all know from the great 'steve's review' (and others) site, there is third party recovery s/w available to recover images from a failed card, so I'm dubious about the feature of internal recovery s/w. Please, talk to me! thanks so much, Rick |
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Comparing Compact Flash card types
Checkout www.zipzoomfly.com and www.newegg.com for prices on compact flash
cards. Be sure to check www.resellerratings.com before buying online. Both zipzoomfly and newegg have excellent recommendations and reasonable prices. Alan D. "Rick S." wrote in message ... I'm shopping for a high capacity (512MB or 1 gig) for my new canon S1 IS, (I want to use its 640x480 movie capability, necessitating high capacity). I see a few types on the market, I'm asking for info from those that have experience or knowledge. I'm leaving brand name considerations out, so as not to muddy the issue. So far, it looks like the only significant difference between type I and type II is the physical size; so if I get a type II it won't fit in my old canon SD110. No biggy, really, I've resigned myself to get a type II. The S1 IS takes either one. So my concern is that I believe that taking movies may REQUIRE a 'high speed' CF card, and the best I can deduce is that the regular type will write maybe 6MB/sec, 'ultra' will write at 9MB/sec, the 'extreme' claims 16MB/sec, but also has inernal recovery s/w if the card fails. A 512Mb CF card, roughly, goes for: regular type II, 100-125$. Ultra type II, 175$. Extreme type II, 250$ !!! Obviously, I'd rather not spend more money for speed I don't need, I would think there's a memory buffer in the camera that acts as a reservoir while it's filming, writing to the flash card as the flash card can take it. But if there's any risk at all that the card is the week point, I'm willing to spend the extra money for the 'ultra'. The 'extreme' sounds nice, but as we all know from the great 'steve's review' (and others) site, there is third party recovery s/w available to recover images from a failed card, so I'm dubious about the feature of internal recovery s/w. Please, talk to me! thanks so much, Rick |
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Comparing Compact Flash card types
On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 04:19:08 -0700, "Robert Meyers"
wrote: "Rick S." wrote in message .. . A 512Mb CF card, roughly, goes for: regular type II, 100-125$. Ultra type II, 175$. Extreme type II, 250$ !!! If those are US dollars... you are getting taken. I have two extremes, the last (last month) was purchased for $119 at Samys Camera (Samys.com). You should search around. Oh, also lexar just brought out some real fast cards recently (80x). Haven't gotten to check them out yet though. Robert, You're right about the prices, I know I can shop around and get 'em cheap; I was more interested in learning why people get different types. You said you have two extremes... why did you get extremes instead of regular, or ultra- and are they type I or II? Rick |
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Comparing Compact Flash card types
On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 04:19:08 -0700, "Robert Meyers"
wrote: "Rick S." wrote in message .. . A 512Mb CF card, roughly, goes for: regular type II, 100-125$. Ultra type II, 175$. Extreme type II, 250$ !!! If those are US dollars... you are getting taken. I have two extremes, the last (last month) was purchased for $119 at Samys Camera (Samys.com). You should search around. Oh, also lexar just brought out some real fast cards recently (80x). Haven't gotten to check them out yet though. Robert, You're right about the prices, I know I can shop around and get 'em cheap; I was more interested in learning why people get different types. You said you have two extremes... why did you get extremes instead of regular, or ultra- and are they type I or II? Rick |
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Comparing Compact Flash card types
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Comparing Compact Flash card types
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Comparing Compact Flash card types
"Rick S." wrote in message ...
with a 'standard' CF card. I know the S1 IS ts not meant to be a video cam, but it does have the 640x480 @30fps function... have you tried that with the standard CF card? That's mainly what I was exploring. I like your analysis of the 'speed ratings' of different standards, there is no real standard like there use to be when CD drives first came out (you must be an old fogy like me to remember that), so they must be taken with a grain of salt. I am only concerned with write speed, which is often in the specs of these cards. It seems that it varies from 1 or 2 Mb/sec to approx 6 to 9Mb/sec for the extremes and ultras. Download (or 'read' speed?) speed from the card or camera doesn't concern me; I can just set it going and walk away and have a beer. It's the ability of the camera to write to the card while shooting pictures that concerns me, and I think that, like you mentioned, the Camera has an internal buffer, or internal memory. I cannot find that data anywhere for the S1 IS, can you? (size of buffer, etc.) Rick Copied from alt.comp.periphs.dcameras: "Canon Labs claims the S1's movie mode at full resolution and frame rate writes to a CF card at a maximum of just over 1.2MB/s, and usually less. That's how fast your CF card should be to avoid problems. It works out to an "8X" card or better. "We opted for a 1GB Sandisk Ultra (Type 1), which was way overkill, but we haven't run into any problems with the S1's movie mode, and most other memory functions on the camera are much faster as well (reviewing, transferring etc)." Buffer size on the S1? No idea. Mike |
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Comparing Compact Flash card types
"Rick S." wrote in message ...
with a 'standard' CF card. I know the S1 IS ts not meant to be a video cam, but it does have the 640x480 @30fps function... have you tried that with the standard CF card? That's mainly what I was exploring. I like your analysis of the 'speed ratings' of different standards, there is no real standard like there use to be when CD drives first came out (you must be an old fogy like me to remember that), so they must be taken with a grain of salt. I am only concerned with write speed, which is often in the specs of these cards. It seems that it varies from 1 or 2 Mb/sec to approx 6 to 9Mb/sec for the extremes and ultras. Download (or 'read' speed?) speed from the card or camera doesn't concern me; I can just set it going and walk away and have a beer. It's the ability of the camera to write to the card while shooting pictures that concerns me, and I think that, like you mentioned, the Camera has an internal buffer, or internal memory. I cannot find that data anywhere for the S1 IS, can you? (size of buffer, etc.) Rick Copied from alt.comp.periphs.dcameras: "Canon Labs claims the S1's movie mode at full resolution and frame rate writes to a CF card at a maximum of just over 1.2MB/s, and usually less. That's how fast your CF card should be to avoid problems. It works out to an "8X" card or better. "We opted for a 1GB Sandisk Ultra (Type 1), which was way overkill, but we haven't run into any problems with the S1's movie mode, and most other memory functions on the camera are much faster as well (reviewing, transferring etc)." Buffer size on the S1? No idea. Mike |
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Comparing Compact Flash card types
On 22 Jul 2004 11:58:37 -0700, (y_p_w) wrote:
Rick S. wrote in message . .. On 19 Jul 2004 14:19:05 -0700, (y_p_w) wrote: Rick S. wrote in message . .. I'm shopping for a high capacity (512MB or 1 gig) for my new canon S1 IS, (I want to use its 640x480 movie capability, necessitating high capacity). I see a few types on the market, I'm asking for info from those that have experience or knowledge. I'm leaving brand name considerations out, so as not to muddy the issue. So far, it looks like the only significant difference between type I and type II is the physical size; so if I get a type II it won't fit in my old canon SD110. I just want to note the "old canon SD110" comment. I thought your were inferring that type I CF cards will fit in an SD110, which takes SD cards. I've got a PowerShot S1 IS. I've played around with it using the slowest CF cards I own (standard SanDisk purchased in late 2002). It takes a long time before I can't take a shot. I supsect the camera has a large internal high-speed memory, and that speed of the cards won't be an issue in the camera unless you manage to max out the internal memory. It might be an issue in an card reader. My PowerShot S200 would max out quickly when bursting shots. With the S1 IS, I was able to get well over 20 straight medium 1 shots with fine compression before it refused to take any more shots. YPW, No, I wasn't talking about an SD110... I bought the Canon S1 IS. I see you did too, and that's good to hear you didn't have speed problems with a 'standard' CF card. I know the S1 IS ts not meant to be a video cam, but it does have the 640x480 @30fps function... have you tried that with the standard CF card? That's mainly what I was exploring. I tried some video. My old PowerShot S200 was strictly limited in the amount of it would store. At the lowest resolution, it would cut out at a max of 30 seconds. With one of my slowest 128 MB cards (red/blue SanDisk or red/black Lexar), it would sometimes stop at as low as 26 seconds. What that tells me is that the small internal memory filled up before the supposedly max video time. I tried the lower vid setting in the S1 IS, and it wouldn't cut out all the way up to the limit of the card, even with a "slow" card. My guess is that these cameras attemptto unload as fast as possible to the card. If the card can't keep up, the camera stores as much in its internal memory until it's maxed out. At that point, the camera shuts down the recording. I like your analysis of the 'speed ratings' of different standards, there is no real standard like there use to be when CD drives first came out (you must be an old fogy like me to remember that), so they must be taken with a grain of salt. I am only concerned with write speed, which is often in the specs of these cards. It seems that it varies from 1 or 2 Mb/sec to approx 6 to 9Mb/sec for the extremes and ultras. Download (or 'read' speed?) speed from the card or camera doesn't concern me; I can just set it going and walk away and have a beer. It's the ability of the camera to write to the card while shooting pictures that concerns me, and I think that, like you mentioned, the Camera has an internal buffer, or internal memory. I cannot find that data anywhere for the S1 IS, can you? (size of buffer, etc.) Good luck trying to find this out. They're not published. As for CF speed, each camera will respond differently based on several criteria. I can imagine that a particular CF card might be mariginally faster in one camera. The reasons are rather esoteric, and have to do with how the clock rate of the camera lines up with the response timing of the flash card. y_p_w: My mistake. Yes, my old camera is an S110. Gee, I've only been using it for 3 years, I should get around to knowing the name of my camera! I think I smoked a few hundred too many joints as a younger man. At least in my later cleaner years I got a BSEE (and have used it in the test field for a coupla decades), so I follow your reasoning on the clock synching issue of the card receive/write ckt, vs the camera send clock and data. I wonder if there's any handshake going on, or the camera just sends, and if the card can 'keep up', fine, if it can't, the camera doesn't know, it just keeps sending, hence gaps or 'frame drops' or whatever the lingo is, when viewing the results. I rarely use my still cameras for video, but it is nice to have the function available in certain instances when a short, low-quality video is better than none at all. I'm very interested in your tests with the S1 IS in video mode. It's good news that your slowest card would 'take' the S1's low video without cutting out, up until the card is filled. Have you, or if you haven't, could you try your slower card with the S1 in the High video mode, and see if the only constraint is still just the size of the card? regards, Rick |
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