Except for the 602 and the S1/2....they do support the CF and microdrive standards, and can be downlaoded directly from the camera as well. However, in the lower end cameras, you are correct, it will be xD cards all the way from here on out.
And the M603 (xD plus CF/Microdrive).
Are you sure about that limit, or is it a guess?
How do you know this? This has been stated before but no cards have appeared, I would certainly want to see one and even bigger if the cameras can hanle them.
From past exerience with fuji camera's and not just fuji either, whenever a larger Smartmedia card comes along later which was not available when the camera was made usually means the larger card will not work in that camera. At least Olympus had a controller upgrade policy although you had to pay and send the camera back to them.
This was a news artical quote on a couple of media sites and also the Register if I remember correctly which was a news release from Samsung who make the bulk of the SM media that a 256 card was imminent, its been quite a few weeks ago and I've heard nothing since, it was also mentioned on here by other users too who had seen this. Lets hope its true and a 256m version does appear. However with the price of 128 SM media currently being so cheap I'm happy to change the cards over when one gets full...only takes 2secs...at least it reduces the chance of losing all your pics on a large capacity card if it goes down.
)
A little of both, I seem to remember reading a thread in here discussing this issue and Fuji indicating it would take a firmware upgrade for the 6900 to be able to read any card larger than 128Mb.
Yes, but the software upgrade is not possible with the 6900/602. What the software upgrade does is allow your on board controller to recognize the exisitence of the larger card. Fuji's has to work the same way, as a SM controller is a SM controller, whether it is in a digicam or an MP3 player. You just have to be able to tell the controller to look for something different, and you can't with the Fuji cameras.
I've never seen anything directly from Fuji on this issue, and Fuji US is notorious for not keeping up with the developments from Japan (based on past experiences with Fuji US). My guess, and it is only a guess, is they released the 602 to get something into the market since the 6900 apparently sold beyond their wildest dreams. The xD card was probably already in development at this point so the 602 was just a stop gap measure to get a solid prosumer camera available until such time as they got an xD compatible version to the market.......but again, this is just a WAG on my part.
--I also have a 1GM microdrive in my iPaq that I can use, will that
suck up battery power faster?
Hi Bob,
The sales guy is full of cr*p. Fuji is not abandoning Smartmedia
because it is so terrible....in fact, Smartmedia cards are pretty
handy overall. SM cards have no moving parts, they are nice and
fast and easy to store. the downisde is they are easy to lose and
the media is exposed. CF cards on the other hand are more robust
and have higher storage capacity. The downside is CF cards have
their controller in the card, which makes them more easily
transferred to other cameras, but also makes them slower to read
and write.
SM cards are also generally cheaper than CF cards.....so the sales
guys make more off them!
Fuji is not abadoning SM....the 602 supports both types. However,
in the futre, all new Fuji cameras will most likely used the xD
cards, whichis a sturdy, yet samller version of the SM card. Fuji
developed this jointly with Toshiba and Olympus. So if the sales
people told you Fuji was going to CF over SM, he's way off base and
has no clue about what the newer Fuji cameras are using.
X-ray machines will not harm SM cards. My 6900 has gone through an
x-ray machine everyday, at least four times a day, since September
12th of last (I work in Federal Building). My SM cards are
perfectly functional as is my camera. Neither have shown any
effects all. What you are thinking of is the machines the postal
service will use to irradiate mail to kill anthrax spores. That is
high energy radiation and will not only kill anthrax spores, but
all compact flash cards, smartmedia cards, media in personal
computers, palm pilots, etc., film and lots of other electronic and
photographic items.
--
John
Fuji 6900Z, Fuji2600Z,
Pentax PZ-1p, Pentax ZX-M, Pentax MX, Oly Stylus
http://www.pbase.com/jglover
--
--Annoying, isn't it
Does this happen on the S1 or S2, do you know?
It seems to me that this is just something that wasn't thought
through too clearly. I imagine (but what do I know about these
things?) to have sorted it out if Fuji had a firmware update
capability.
As I say, I simply get around the problem by copying the cards into
subdirectories. But it would be nice if I didn't have to ........
Something I must try is shooting a 640X480 image, copying it to my
PC, re-naming it, erasing the card, and copying the re-named image
back to the card. Presumably the number of the rest of the images
on the card will start from there?
Ah, yes .... but I always load my pics onto the PC via card-reader and not from the camera.
The forum member that mentioned the note from Fuji twas me.This was a news artical quote on a couple of media sites and also
the Register if I remember correctly which was a news release from
Samsung who make the bulk of the SM media that a 256 card was
imminent, its been quite a few weeks ago and I've heard nothing
since, it was also mentioned on here by other users too who had
seen this. Lets hope its true and a 256m version does appear.
However with the price of 128 SM media currently being so cheap I'm
happy to change the cards over when one gets full...only takes
2secs...at least it reduces the chance of losing all your pics on a
large capacity card if it goes down.
I strongly doubt that even if a 256m SM version does appear
eventually that it will work with the 602 anyway without a
controller update, and Fuji never offer them... so its immaterial!
I noted in a email from Fuji recently which a forum user had
received when he queried this with Fuji, they stated the camera
was 100% compatible with SM cards up to 128m and microdrives, they
made no statement denying that a 256m was to be released which I
thought they would have done if the statement about a 256m version
becoming available was not true.... we shall have to wait and see.
Grandpa
Well sure they can, but only with the camera software installed on your computer. Smartmedia can be read as an ejectable volume by the system software. No need for installs that can conflict with everything. I prefer to download that way then work with the files in Photoshop. Hard to forget the problems with the card reader drivers back a couple years ago.
This has nothing to do with SmartMedia vs. CompactFlash; it only depends on the camera's USB interface.
