Do you REALLY need the speed?

Rich Gibson said:

I've seen numerous posts recently regarding the importance of speed
and the need to obtain the fastest possible CF cards.

I've got enough memory so I haven't spent any time comparing the
specifications of various brands. However I wonder if some of us
are focusing on the wrong specifications. For example, there are
several bottlenecks in digital cameras which render the speed of
the CF moot. For example I used to own the Nikon 900,950, 990 and
5000. In every case I was not satisifed with the time it took from
when the shutter release was depressed to when the image was
captured. I bought the D100 and I am a happy camper. CF card
speed was not a factor here.

In another circumstance, transferring the images from the card to
the computer seems to be insensitive to the speed of the card.
However I've seen all sorts of comparison how such and such card
"blows away" some other brand. For what? cutting the transfer time
of a 256mb CF card from 60 seconds to 30 seconds? Sure that's
twice the speed, but so what?

One poster askes for the "fastes CF card his 995 can
handle"..."handle?" Does he really think a faster CF card will
speed up his 995? The speed of a CF card, like computer RAM is
only fast if the computer is fast. Like using a SVO Mustang to go
to the grocery store. The only positive in this is a feeling of
well being of the owner that he/she owns the fastest grocery
delivery car in town, but little else. If there are other limiting
factors speed is not that important.

Just my $.02

Rich

Click to expand...

Wilhelm Taylor said:

I've taken about 20000 images with my 990. My card reader
transfers images at 790KB/sec. My average image is 1150KB (mostly
"fine" JPG). So it has taken about 29000 seconds to download those
files - about 8 hours. If I could double the speed I would save 4
hours on the next 20000 file downloads.

What's your time worth?

Also, have you tried taking many images quickly with your D100? At
some point you will probably fill the internal camera memory and
have to live with the CF transfer rate.

Wilhelm

Rich Gibson said:

I've seen numerous posts recently regarding the importance of speed
and the need to obtain the fastest possible CF cards.

I've got enough memory so I haven't spent any time comparing the
specifications of various brands. However I wonder if some of us
are focusing on the wrong specifications. For example, there are
several bottlenecks in digital cameras which render the speed of
the CF moot. For example I used to own the Nikon 900,950, 990 and
5000. In every case I was not satisifed with the time it took from
when the shutter release was depressed to when the image was
captured. I bought the D100 and I am a happy camper. CF card
speed was not a factor here.

In another circumstance, transferring the images from the card to
the computer seems to be insensitive to the speed of the card.
However I've seen all sorts of comparison how such and such card
"blows away" some other brand. For what? cutting the transfer time
of a 256mb CF card from 60 seconds to 30 seconds? Sure that's
twice the speed, but so what?

One poster askes for the "fastes CF card his 995 can
handle"..."handle?" Does he really think a faster CF card will
speed up his 995? The speed of a CF card, like computer RAM is
only fast if the computer is fast. Like using a SVO Mustang to go
to the grocery store. The only positive in this is a feeling of
well being of the owner that he/she owns the fastest grocery
delivery car in town, but little else. If there are other limiting
factors speed is not that important.

Just my $.02

Rich

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Wilhelm Taylor said:

I've taken about 20000 images with my 990. My card reader
transfers images at 790KB/sec. My average image is 1150KB (mostly
"fine" JPG). So it has taken about 29000 seconds to download those
files - about 8 hours. If I could double the speed I would save 4
hours on the next 20000 file downloads.

What's your time worth?

Also, have you tried taking many images quickly with your D100? At
some point you will probably fill the internal camera memory and
have to live with the CF transfer rate.

Wilhelm

Rich Gibson said:

I've seen numerous posts recently regarding the importance of speed
and the need to obtain the fastest possible CF cards.

I've got enough memory so I haven't spent any time comparing the
specifications of various brands. However I wonder if some of us
are focusing on the wrong specifications. For example, there are
several bottlenecks in digital cameras which render the speed of
the CF moot. For example I used to own the Nikon 900,950, 990 and
5000. In every case I was not satisifed with the time it took from
when the shutter release was depressed to when the image was
captured. I bought the D100 and I am a happy camper. CF card
speed was not a factor here.

In another circumstance, transferring the images from the card to
the computer seems to be insensitive to the speed of the card.
However I've seen all sorts of comparison how such and such card
"blows away" some other brand. For what? cutting the transfer time
of a 256mb CF card from 60 seconds to 30 seconds? Sure that's
twice the speed, but so what?

One poster askes for the "fastes CF card his 995 can
handle"..."handle?" Does he really think a faster CF card will
speed up his 995? The speed of a CF card, like computer RAM is
only fast if the computer is fast. Like using a SVO Mustang to go
to the grocery store. The only positive in this is a feeling of
well being of the owner that he/she owns the fastest grocery
delivery car in town, but little else. If there are other limiting
factors speed is not that important.

Just my $.02

Rich

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

mantastic said:

So you could save 4 hours over how many months/years it takes you
to shoot and download 20000 pics? If you had the 4 hours all at
once, great! You could do something good with the time. But 4
hours spread over any significant amount of time is a meaningless
savings.

Click to expand...

Wilhelm Taylor said:

I'm irritated each time I have to wait minutes for a transfer, and
that's quite often. People like me who crave speed tend to direct
the engineering efforts towards faster products. If the cost
increase is small, why not get more speed? By and large, speed
increases have been essentially free in the long run.

BTW, I don't just store images on my CF card. I download drivers
and things at work (fast connection). A full 512 MB card can take
11 minutes to transfer EACH WAY! I also sometimes use ACDSee to
look at images right on the CF card. Takes forever to form the
thumbnails.

I'm pondering the purchase of a Firewire CF reader. On the Sandisk
site they extoll the speed of Firewire in general but say nothing
of any potential speed advantage when transfering data to/from
their Ultra 512 CF card. Does anyone know if a Firewire (or USB
2.0) CF reader has any advantage over a USB 1.0 reader? In other
words, is the limit set by the card or the reader?

Wilhelm

mantastic said:

So you could save 4 hours over how many months/years it takes you
to shoot and download 20000 pics? If you had the 4 hours all at
once, great! You could do something good with the time. But 4
hours spread over any significant amount of time is a meaningless
savings.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Wilhelm Taylor said:

I'm irritated each time I have to wait minutes for a transfer, and
that's quite often. People like me who crave speed tend to direct
the engineering efforts towards faster products. If the cost
increase is small, why not get more speed? By and large, speed
increases have been essentially free in the long run.

BTW, I don't just store images on my CF card. I download drivers
and things at work (fast connection). A full 512 MB card can take
11 minutes to transfer EACH WAY! I also sometimes use ACDSee to
look at images right on the CF card. Takes forever to form the
thumbnails.

I'm pondering the purchase of a Firewire CF reader. On the Sandisk
site they extoll the speed of Firewire in general but say nothing
of any potential speed advantage when transfering data to/from
their Ultra 512 CF card. Does anyone know if a Firewire (or USB
2.0) CF reader has any advantage over a USB 1.0 reader? In other
words, is the limit set by the card or the reader?

Wilhelm

mantastic said:

So you could save 4 hours over how many months/years it takes you
to shoot and download 20000 pics? If you had the 4 hours all at
once, great! You could do something good with the time. But 4
hours spread over any significant amount of time is a meaningless
savings.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

ricardo jamin said:

--ricardo

Wilhelm Taylor said:

I'm irritated each time I have to wait minutes for a transfer, and
that's quite often. People like me who crave speed tend to direct
the engineering efforts towards faster products. If the cost
increase is small, why not get more speed? By and large, speed
increases have been essentially free in the long run.

BTW, I don't just store images on my CF card. I download drivers
and things at work (fast connection). A full 512 MB card can take
11 minutes to transfer EACH WAY! I also sometimes use ACDSee to
look at images right on the CF card. Takes forever to form the
thumbnails.

I'm pondering the purchase of a Firewire CF reader. On the Sandisk
site they extoll the speed of Firewire in general but say nothing
of any potential speed advantage when transfering data to/from
their Ultra 512 CF card. Does anyone know if a Firewire (or USB
2.0) CF reader has any advantage over a USB 1.0 reader? In other
words, is the limit set by the card or the reader?

Wilhelm

mantastic said:

So you could save 4 hours over how many months/years it takes you
to shoot and download 20000 pics? If you had the 4 hours all at
once, great! You could do something good with the time. But 4
hours spread over any significant amount of time is a meaningless
savings.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
http://www.jaminphotography.com/

Click to expand...

Rich Gibson said:

I've seen numerous posts recently regarding the importance of speed
and the need to obtain the fastest possible CF cards.

I've got enough memory so I haven't spent any time comparing the
specifications of various brands. However I wonder if some of us
are focusing on the wrong specifications. For example, there are
several bottlenecks in digital cameras which render the speed of
the CF moot. For example I used to own the Nikon 900,950, 990 and
5000. In every case I was not satisifed with the time it took from
when the shutter release was depressed to when the image was
captured. I bought the D100 and I am a happy camper. CF card
speed was not a factor here.

In another circumstance, transferring the images from the card to
the computer seems to be insensitive to the speed of the card.
However I've seen all sorts of comparison how such and such card
"blows away" some other brand. For what? cutting the transfer time
of a 256mb CF card from 60 seconds to 30 seconds? Sure that's
twice the speed, but so what?

One poster askes for the "fastes CF card his 995 can
handle"..."handle?" Does he really think a faster CF card will
speed up his 995? The speed of a CF card, like computer RAM is
only fast if the computer is fast. Like using a SVO Mustang to go
to the grocery store. The only positive in this is a feeling of
well being of the owner that he/she owns the fastest grocery
delivery car in town, but little else. If there are other limiting
factors speed is not that important.

Just my $.02

Rich

Click to expand...

m hodson said:

I have a USB 2 card reader and did some tests as compared to my old
1.1 reader and to cut a long story short it comes out at 5x faster
reading and 2.7 faster writing. the results are actually very close
to the Digital film comparison in this site for a Ridata 512 card
and shows even though the Ridata card is one of the faster cards it
does not come close to the manufacterers figures.Even so the test
figures are more than enough for most cameras which can't utilize
the faster speeds of the cards.
The main advantage is in the transferring from card to Cpu.
My Usb 2 reader comes out at 5 x faster than my 1.1 in transferring
from card to Cpu and 2.7x from Cpu to card.
5 x times is a great saving in time when you are talking 3 or 4
full 512 cards downloads.
Lets face it technology is all about advancment.
M.Hodson

Click to expand...

Rich Gibson said:

Rich

Rich Gibson said:

I've seen numerous posts recently regarding the importance of speed
and the need to obtain the fastest possible CF cards.

I've got enough memory so I haven't spent any time comparing the
specifications of various brands. However I wonder if some of us
are focusing on the wrong specifications. For example, there are
several bottlenecks in digital cameras which render the speed of
the CF moot. For example I used to own the Nikon 900,950, 990 and
5000. In every case I was not satisifed with the time it took from
when the shutter release was depressed to when the image was
captured. I bought the D100 and I am a happy camper. CF card
speed was not a factor here.

In another circumstance, transferring the images from the card to
the computer seems to be insensitive to the speed of the card.
However I've seen all sorts of comparison how such and such card
"blows away" some other brand. For what? cutting the transfer time
of a 256mb CF card from 60 seconds to 30 seconds? Sure that's
twice the speed, but so what?

One poster askes for the "fastes CF card his 995 can
handle"..."handle?" Does he really think a faster CF card will
speed up his 995? The speed of a CF card, like computer RAM is
only fast if the computer is fast. Like using a SVO Mustang to go
to the grocery store. The only positive in this is a feeling of
well being of the owner that he/she owns the fastest grocery
delivery car in town, but little else. If there are other limiting
factors speed is not that important.

Just my $.02

Rich

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

m hodson said:

No , I go outside take more photos and enjoy life!!

Click to expand...

Wilhelm Taylor said:

Thanks, Ricardo & M. Hodson

I would buy the card for a 50% improvement. 500% just makes me
salivate. I was contemplating the Firewire Sandisk reader but it's
~$60. Are there USB 2.0 readers at a significantly lower price?

Click to expand...

Rich Gibson said:

For what? cutting the transfer time
of a 256mb CF card from 60 seconds to 30 seconds? Sure that's
twice the speed, but so what?

Click to expand...