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CF card in e-420 - good or bad feature.

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loafer

loafer

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The 420 with the pancake lens is the rangefinder style camera that enthusiasts have been looking for - but I just can't help thinking that if oly gave up the CF card in the small dslr they could make it even smaller. On the other hand enthusiasts might really want the CF slot?

420 with 25 mm pancake and 40-150 compact zoom and 15mm pancake (if that is possible) would make Leica owners bawl.
 
G'day Loafer

The CF card is there because the xD card is so tragically s-l-o-w!

I have both in my E-510, and only use the xD when I have to, precisely because it is so slow.

xD cards are also (relatively) expensive, limited in maximum capacity and speed of data transfer, both in the camera and in a card reader ( specially in a card reader ... ).

Regards, john from Melbourne, Australia.
-----

The Camera doth not make the Man (or Woman) ...
Perhaps being kind to cats, dogs & children does ...

http://canopuscomputing.com.au/gallery2/main.php



Bird Control Officers on active service.
 
but I am fine with them using CF. I am not sure the size difference would be that big honestly.
loafer said:
The 420 with the pancake lens is the rangefinder style camera that
enthusiasts have been looking for - but I just can't help thinking
that if oly gave up the CF card in the small dslr they could make it
even smaller. On the other hand enthusiasts might really want the CF
slot?
420 with 25 mm pancake and 40-150 compact zoom and 15mm pancake (if
that is possible) would make Leica owners bawl.
Click to expand...
--
Raist3d (Photog. Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'
 
I use a no-name 2GB no-speed CF card...yet it writes the RAW shots quickly and painlessly...only showing its slowness when uploading to the PC (then, I don't mind waiting).

--
dholl
 
G'day Louis (& Loafer)
Louis_Dobson said:
If they weren't committed to XD, they could dump XD and CF and fit
SD. Which would be good.
--
Click to expand...
[edit] I agree. xD is truly horrible. [end edit]

I did some speed tests on my xD card and a Micro-SD today using my USB 2.0 Sandisk card reader (9 MB/s maximum) for another reason. The xD turned in 2.9 MB/s and the Micro-SD turned in 8.5 MB/s. All the other speeds were the same sort of relativity, in favour of the Micro-SD.

CF is superior to SD in that it has 16 bit data path rather than using a serial/8 bit data path. SD may be as fast as a "slow" CF (like the ones I use - Sandisk Ultra IIs), but I suspect they are nowhere near as fast as the quick Sandisk and Transcend CF cards.

Answers, anyone?

Regards, john from Melbourne, Australia.
-----

The Camera doth not make the Man (or Woman) ...
Perhaps being kind to cats, dogs & children does ...

http://canopuscomputing.com.au/gallery2/main.php



Bird Control Officers on active service.
 
Hi,

I personaly can not see any advantage on CF ( or xD) over SD. I guess the whole market will slowly move to SD, it is already more common at the moment ( interms of total devices, not high end devices)

xD: not common enough

CF:
  • bulkier than SD
  • easier to fail mechanically ( bend pins, dirt-filled holes)
  • pottentially discontinued: there are currently negotiations on a new CF-standard based on serial, not parallel data transfer, not quite clear yet if it will be back compatible.
SD:
  • smaller
  • card reader in many current notebooks
  • possible to get cards which fit directely in USB port ( sandisk ultra II plus usb)
In terms of capacity, speed and price/size SD an CF are relativvelly close.

CF is still very popular since it was considerd the "pro" type of cards, this where the days of the 1 GB harddisk based CF-cards... at this time it would have seemed science fiction to discuss a several GB SD card with a decent speed.

actually the lack of a SD card slot is one of the reasons I did not buy a Olympus yet.

cheers

r.
 
Oly must be hanging on to XD, trying to beat out SD. Anyway maybe the future really is in internal memory (on entry level cameras) - one less cavity in the camera will put less constraints on design
 
schmaud said:
Hi,

I personaly can not see any advantage on CF ( or xD) over SD. I guess
the whole market will slowly move to SD, it is already more common at
the moment ( interms of total devices, not high end devices)

xD: not common enough

CF:
  • bulkier than SD
  • easier to fail mechanically ( bend pins, dirt-filled holes)
  • pottentially discontinued: there are currently negotiations on a
new CF-standard based on serial, not parallel data transfer, not
quite clear yet if it will be back compatible.
Click to expand...
True, but the bigger size means you get the larger capacities before SDHC.
schmaud said:
SD:
  • smaller
  • card reader in many current notebooks
  • possible to get cards which fit directely in USB port ( sandisk
ultra II plus usb)
Click to expand...
Note, SD is undergoing a transition from SD to SDHC. So it has compatibility problems.

However, I suspect that most notebooks unless you bought something very recently have SD and not SDHC readers, which limits you to using older 1GB cards. The cards that fit in the USB ports actually violate the USB specs in terms of size, and potentially may not work in all devices. In a couple of years, when all of the old SD infrastructure has been cleared out, then maybe you will see the full potential of SDHC.
schmaud said:
In terms of capacity, speed and price/size SD an CF are relativvelly
close.
Click to expand...
Usually SDHC is at least one generation behind CF in terms of size.
schmaud said:
CF is still very popular since it was considerd the "pro" type of
cards, this where the days of the 1 GB harddisk based CF-cards... at
this time it would have seemed science fiction to discuss a several
GB SD card with a decent speed.
Click to expand...
 
loafer said:
Oly must be hanging on to XD, trying to beat out SD.
Click to expand...
Wishful thinking, but yes that seems to be their rationale.
loafer said:
Anyway maybe
the future really is in internal memory (on entry level cameras) -
one less cavity in the camera will put less constraints on design
Click to expand...
That would be very unfortunate. Internal memory has a habit of being slow and small, and the camera's USB interface is almost never a strong point (in addition to draining the already-too-small battery). Offloading 8GB at 5MB/s... Good god.

--
MFBernstein

'Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.' - Ed Abbey
 
John King said:
[edit] I agree. xD is truly horrible. [end edit]

I did some speed tests on my xD card and a Micro-SD today using my
USB 2.0 Sandisk card reader (9 MB/s maximum) for another reason. The
xD turned in 2.9 MB/s and the Micro-SD turned in 8.5 MB/s. All the
other speeds were the same sort of relativity, in favour of the
Micro-SD.

CF is superior to SD in that it has 16 bit data path rather than
using a serial/8 bit data path. SD may be as fast as a "slow" CF
(like the ones I use - Sandisk Ultra IIs), but I suspect they are
nowhere near as fast as the quick Sandisk and Transcend CF cards.

Answers, anyone?
Click to expand...
For low-end camera, the differences really aren't that big. A good SD card can get almost 20MB/s. For a camera like the E-420, that's plenty. Indeed, without adding UDMA support (unlikely for the time being on a $500 camera), faster CF cards gain you very little.

Regarding the OP's question though, I'm not sure the E-420 could be shrunk much without compromising the ergonomics. Between the screen, the mirror box, the battery and the buttons/controls, how exactly are they going to make the camera narrower? Meanwhile, you lose out on sharing media with mid-end and high-end cameras.

--
MFBernstein

'Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.' - Ed Abbey
 
I certainly hope you are wrong. I hope that CF is forever. I see no pint to make cards smaller than the CF. As a person gets older it is more and more difficult to handle tiny things. Photography is not something which is reserved for the young ones, even people at age should be allowed to use cameras.

Regardless how old or young you are, just one question:

How many xD, SD or mini SD cards did you change in strong winds and well below zero celsius with gloves on? I say: none.

And that answer shows that you are wrong, because not only elderly people, but even younger ones have problems to handle small things in cold and windy weather and can not do that with gloves.

I really hope the dSLR industry NEVER adopts this everything-must-become-smaller attitude, and I am actually glad I see a trend in mobile phone industry where the phones no longer becoming smaller, but actually increase in size. There is no self justification in minimising things, even thogh I don't really care what Olympus would use in the E-4xx cameras. Then again, some people have that as a backup, and I am sure they appreciate the possibility to use CF in both the E-3 and the E-420. I would however appreciate if Olympus installed another CF slot, or an SD slot instead of the xD in future bodies.

CF size is optimal from the handling point of view, so I hope it will never be replaced in the top models. I jump ship definitely if CF is replaced by SD. Anyway, it will not happen any time soon, since SD is much slower than CF. The next technology after CF is probably SATA, but not even that will replace the CF cards tomorrow, and even those are hopefully going to be the same, or similar in size.
--
http://www.olyflyer.blogspot.com/
 
Why..I don't see any problem with using SD only if it is the way forward...Pentax DSLRs use only SD nowadays.
 
Hi MFB
mfbernstein said:
John King said:
[edit] I agree. xD is truly horrible. [end edit]

Answers, anyone?
Click to expand...
For low-end camera, the differences really aren't that big. A good SD
card can get almost 20MB/s.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the figures, MF. Quite interesting about the speed difference. My Ultra IIs only go to about 9 MB/s, as does my fastest card reader currently. So the fast SD cards are already (much) faster than my "old" CF cards (they are more than fast enough for my purposes, however).

I must say I would hate to be handling Micro-SD cards regularly though. I had to use tweezers to get the darn thing out of my phone to do the tests today!

I agree with Olyflyer about things needing to be a certain size to be usable!!

Regards, john from Melbourne, Australia.
-----

The Camera doth not make the Man (or Woman) ...
Perhaps being kind to cats, dogs & children does ...

http://canopuscomputing.com.au/gallery2/main.php



Bird Control Officers on active service.
 
--
What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?

--
wallygoots.smugmug.com
wallygoots.blogspot.com
 
Hi Olyflyer
olyflyer said:
CF size is optimal from the handling point of view, so I hope it will
never be replaced in the top models.
Click to expand...
This is the real crux of the matter - there is an optimal size for some things in order that humans can easily manipulate them.

I suspect that CF will remain but the capacity and speed will increase rather than the card becoming smaller. I certainly hope so. CFs are much easier to handle than SDs (for me, anyway). xDs are next to impossible (wrong shape and size). Micro-SDs may be fine for phones and PDAs where they are (relatively) "shove in and forget about". But with cameras, one is always pulling them in and out.

Regards, john from Melbourne, Australia.
-----

The Camera doth not make the Man (or Woman) ...
Perhaps being kind to cats, dogs & children does ...

http://canopuscomputing.com.au/gallery2/main.php



Bird Control Officers on active service.
 
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