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xD memory card

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Just want to thank all and so many respnders to my original question about xD cards. I had no idea about any of the points discussed. It was in preparation for possible purchase of the new Olympus SP550. I recently bought an H5 and am learning how to use it. I dislike that Sony card for its size mostly as I find it difficult to remove from the cam slot. But I point the cam downward and push down on the card and let it eject like a rocket sometimes but I aim it well :> ) Haven't hurt it yet!

I also use CF cards in my old Nikon 950 and that still works fine.

Thank you all very much. It all was quite interesting and educational.
 
Oly will probably sell loads of this model but one can't help thinking they would sell many many more if they provided a dual slot.

Be interesting to see if they follow Fuji's lead.
 
Theresa K said:
not to mention if you switch camera brands you are screwed.
--
Click to expand...
Well . . . you could say that about the Nikon D70 and Nikon D80 too . . .

And there, you are not even switching brands!

--
J. M. Daniels
Denver, Colorado
Panasonic FZ10, FZ50 & Fuji S602Z owner & operator

 
At last we know who makes xD cards and where. Not like these cheap and anonymous brands of other types from somewhere but who knows where?

But does it really matter? Get a sense of proportion about this; who would let the price of the head-light bulbs decide what car they buy?

Regards, David
 
Theresa K said:
No one. But if the engine were considerably slower it might be a
deciding factor. I shoot all RAW files, I want faster cards.
Simple as that.
Click to expand...
True but in my camera the buffer decides this not the card and I think the camera is more important than the card. Especially since this is about the cost of the cards; spread over several thousands of images I can't see that it matters. Also (well, in my case), brain and finger lag cause more problems...

Regards, David
 
The card speed determines how fast your camera can empty that buffer. In p&s cameras, typically you can't fire the shutter until the camera has done this. With a decent card, that's nearly instant...with slow xD cards, you're often waiting up to several seconds until you can shoot again.

On a dslr, you're probably shooting raw. Most let you keep shooting and pass data out of the buffer onto the card in the background, but once that buffer is full, card speed determines shooting rate. With larger, RAW files, that can happen faster than you'd think, and almost by definition, it WILL happen exactly at the worst times.

Try something like an E500 with dual CF/xD slots. Put a fast CF and an xD card in each slot, and try shooting with each card. (I've done this btw). It feels like an entirely different camera when using the fast CF instead of the slow xD card. Afterwards, transfer those files from the card to your computer, and see just how long that can take on the xD. It's not just a bit faster on the CF...it's literally an order of magnitude.

--
Someday maybe I'll think of something useful to put in here...
 
David Hughes said:
.....But does it really matter? Get a sense of proportion about this;
who would let the price of the head-light bulbs decide what car
they buy?
Click to expand...
At last — a bit of sanity!

If I'm buying a $1000 camera, I don't really care whether its card is worth $10 or $25. The people who use the higher(?) price of XD cards as a potential nail in their coffin really need a reality check!

Cheers.
 
ausGeoff said:
David Hughes said:
.....But does it really matter? Get a sense of proportion about this;
who would let the price of the head-light bulbs decide what car
they buy?
Click to expand...
At last — a bit of sanity!

If I'm buying a $1000 camera, I don't really care whether its card
is worth $10 or $25. The people who use the higher(?) price of XD
cards as a potential nail in their coffin really need a reality
check!

Cheers.
Click to expand...
Thanks.

And for those who want to argue more: I have far more SD cards and CF cards (and the odd Smart Media) than xD cards but since buying the first camera that had an xD card I have put a little over twenty four thousand photo's on the HDD. Most of them taken on either my or my wife's P&S's.

The CF and SD cards being used by the two serious cameras we have, but serious cameras are used for serious shots which I set up carefully etc etc and so don't take many of them compared to the P&S which take thousands of shots.

As for the price, well Tesco's charge £12 for a 256MB card and the third time I filled it I had shot 300 to 350 pictures and I make that dirt cheap and if I lost it tomorrow (instead of keeping it and using it for 4 years like the old ones) I wouldn't worry too much about the cost.

As for the blunderbus or machine gun approach to photography; I can only say that there are other ways and anyone who has used cut film (amazingly slow compared to the P&S) will/can explain how.

Regards, David
 
RWill said:
Try something like an E500 with dual CF/xD slots. Put a fast CF
and an xD card in each slot, and try shooting with each card.
(I've done this btw). It feels like an entirely different camera
when using the fast CF instead of the slow xD card.
Click to expand...
Was that with the latest faster xD card (type H, IIRC) or with the other slower type (type M, IIRC)?
 
marcuson said:
RWill said:
Try something like an E500 with dual CF/xD slots. Put a fast CF
and an xD card in each slot, and try shooting with each card.
(I've done this btw). It feels like an entirely different camera
when using the fast CF instead of the slow xD card.
Click to expand...
Was that with the latest faster xD card (type H, IIRC) or with the
other slower type (type M, IIRC)?
Click to expand...
Since he hasn't responded, perhaps I can put this question: how does the speed of the fastest xD card (M or H, whatever it is) compare to the SD card?
 
marcuson said:
How does the speed of the fastest xD card (M or H, whatever it is)
compare to the SD card?

--
Click to expand...
Well . . . I'm not sure what the write speed is for xD cards, but I do know this!

Even though the high speed SD cards are now in 133X and 150X . . .

Most people are just too cheap to spend the extra money for them (high speed cards), and usually opt with the slow speed, less expensive SD cards (4X-12X).

So . . . if you look at it that way, then just about all the xD cards ARE faster speed than the slow speed SD cards!

I know this (about most people being too cheap) as I sell cameras 40 hours a week (in a real camera store) . . . not many people, even when enlightened about how the card speed will help them, will not spend the extra $10 bucks for faster response.

Now, if we are talking point and shoot digitals, then the high speed cards will not help much in most of them anyway, other than when downloading using a card reader (not from the camera).

--
J. M. Daniels
Denver, Colorado
Panasonic FZ10, FZ50 & Fuji S602Z owner & operator

 
To answer, I don't recall which speed it was. In any case, if I recall correctly, the 'fast' xD is about twice the speed of the slower ones. In all the comparisons I've done of actual shot speeds in cameras (some dslrs, and point and shoots..obviously different models there, but comparable age/technology levels) no xD was within a factor of 2 speed of the sd or cf cards. The closest was the very slowest sd/cfs, but even the cheap 16mb panasonic that was bundled with my fz10 more than doubled the performance of standard xD cards. Sandisk ultra II/extreme, ATP 60X or pro max cards were far more than an order of magnitude faster. So even if you doubled the speed of the xD cards, they aren't in the same ballpark.

To summarize my points in this entire thread, xD is a format with NO advantages over the competing formats, only parity, or disadvantages. Would that prevent me buying an otherwise good camera using xD? No. But that same good camera would be a better one if it instead used sd. I can't fathom anyone trying to dispute that.

I'd be a lot happier if Fuji and Olympus finally abandoned the format and went all sd, and I'd bet most reviewers and consumers would be too.

--
Someday maybe I'll think of something useful to put in here...
 
RWill said:
I'd be a lot happier if Fuji and Olympus finally abandoned the
format and went all sd, and I'd bet most reviewers and consumers
would be too.

--
Click to expand...
I'd say there is as much of a chance of that happening as there is for Sony to dump their memory sticks in favor of SD cards.

The only DSLR that uses xD is the Olympus, as far as I know, since the Fuji's DSLR's use compact flash cards!

Perhaps the slowness of the xD is not only the card, but the camera!

--
J. M. Daniels
Denver, Colorado
Panasonic FZ10, FZ50 & Fuji S602Z owner & operator

 
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