Largest CF card for E-10?

Paul Sumi · Mar 11, 2003

Apologies if this has already been covered (the forum "search" function is not working right now, else I'd check previous threads).

What is the largest capacity CF card that will work in the E-10. I presume it's 1 gig, but will larger sizes (2+ gig) also work?

Any experiences appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul

Jeff Mc · Mar 11, 2003

I only know my 512mb works ok in my E-10

Paul Sumi said:
Apologies if this has already been covered (the forum "search"
function is not working right now, else I'd check previous threads).

What is the largest capacity CF card that will work in the E-10. I
presume it's 1 gig, but will larger sizes (2+ gig) also work?

Any experiences appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul

--
Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/jefmcn/root

Tim Corcoran · Mar 11, 2003

Paul Sumi said:
What is the largest capacity CF card that will work in the E-10. I
presume it's 1 gig, but will larger sizes (2+ gig) also work?

Paul,

AFAIK the controller for CF is onboard the card (unlike SmartMedia)
which means that the E-10 should accept any CF card that is
compliant with the standard.

Tim

vjsilva · Mar 11, 2003

Not so. The 1 GB CF cards works, but cards larger than that like the 3GB must be formatted as FAT32 which the E-xx doesn't support.

--VJS

Tim Corcoran said:
Paul Sumi said:

What is the largest capacity CF card that will work in the E-10. I
presume it's 1 gig, but will larger sizes (2+ gig) also work?

Click to expand...

Paul,

AFAIK the controller for CF is onboard the card (unlike SmartMedia)
which means that the E-10 should accept any CF card that is
compliant with the standard.

Tim

Kurt B · Mar 11, 2003

With that said, is it true than the larger the CF the less "efficient" the card is? (as a HD would be formatted with fat32 vs NTFS for example)?
Kurt

vjsilva said:
--VJS

Tim Corcoran said:

Paul Sumi said:

What is the largest capacity CF card that will work in the E-10. I
presume it's 1 gig, but will larger sizes (2+ gig) also work?

Click to expand...

Paul,

AFAIK the controller for CF is onboard the card (unlike SmartMedia)
which means that the E-10 should accept any CF card that is
compliant with the standard.

Tim

Click to expand...

Paul Sumi · Mar 11, 2003

Jeff, Tim and VJSilva,

Thanks all for the feedback. I thought I had read that > 2 gigs needed Fat32 support, but wasn't sure.

I'm thinking that 512 meg cards are now in the "sweet spot" re: cost/benefit. I suspect that this is also the minimum practical size when I finally jump to a interchangeable lens DSLR.

The Canon 10D looks very tempting, but I think I'm holding out for another year. Or I win the lotto [g].

Best,

Paul

vjsilva said:
--VJS

Tim Corcoran said:

Paul Sumi said:

What is the largest capacity CF card that will work in the E-10. I
presume it's 1 gig, but will larger sizes (2+ gig) also work?

Click to expand...

Paul,

AFAIK the controller for CF is onboard the card (unlike SmartMedia)
which means that the E-10 should accept any CF card that is
compliant with the standard.

Tim

Click to expand...

Cullen Simpson · Mar 11, 2003

I am not up on th elatest prices for compact clash cards, but I ran across
this: http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10322327
They have a 1GB flash for under $200 after rebate.

When I first got my E-10 there was talk about using the micro drive from IBM and that it sucked the life from the batteries.
Do these large CFs have the same issue?

I have a B-30 and hope that would still provide a reasonable number of shots with this 1GB card.

I think the real problem would be the time required to look at all the shots and weed out the bad ones with a 1GB card full.

Cullen

Paul Sumi said:
Thanks all for the feedback. I thought I had read that > 2 gigs
needed Fat32 support, but wasn't sure.

I'm thinking that 512 meg cards are now in the "sweet spot" re:
cost/benefit. I suspect that this is also the minimum practical
size when I finally jump to a interchangeable lens DSLR.

The Canon 10D looks very tempting, but I think I'm holding out for
another year. Or I win the lotto [g].

Best,

Paul

vjsilva said:

--VJS

Tim Corcoran said:

Paul Sumi said:

What is the largest capacity CF card that will work in the E-10. I
presume it's 1 gig, but will larger sizes (2+ gig) also work?

Click to expand...

Paul,

AFAIK the controller for CF is onboard the card (unlike SmartMedia)
which means that the E-10 should accept any CF card that is
compliant with the standard.

Tim

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

GageFX133521 · Mar 11, 2003

Hey Paul, I believe it isnt "> 2G needs fat32" but I believe it is "> =2G needs fat32". Which is to say, I believe less than 2G is the max.

-GAgeFX

Paul Sumi said:
Thanks all for the feedback. I thought I had read that > 2 gigs
needed Fat32 support, but wasn't sure.

I'm thinking that 512 meg cards are now in the "sweet spot" re:
cost/benefit. I suspect that this is also the minimum practical
size when I finally jump to a interchangeable lens DSLR.

The Canon 10D looks very tempting, but I think I'm holding out for
another year. Or I win the lotto [g].

Best,

Paul

vjsilva said:

--VJS

Tim Corcoran said:

Paul Sumi said:

What is the largest capacity CF card that will work in the E-10. I
presume it's 1 gig, but will larger sizes (2+ gig) also work?

Click to expand...

Paul,

AFAIK the controller for CF is onboard the card (unlike SmartMedia)
which means that the E-10 should accept any CF card that is
compliant with the standard.

Tim

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

GageFX133521 · Mar 11, 2003

When I first started in DIGITAL photography 3 years ago, first with the Kodak DC290 and then the mInolta RD3000 shortly after that, I was doing event photography. I needed MULTIPLE cards and decent size. I bought 2 92M cards - for $250 EACH!!! And now I scoff at 128 for $50. Thank god for Moore, his law, and the eventual reduction in the price of technology.

-GageFX

Cullen Simpson said:
When I first got my E-10 there was talk about using the micro drive
from IBM and that it sucked the life from the batteries.
Do these large CFs have the same issue?

I have a B-30 and hope that would still provide a reasonable number
of shots with this 1GB card.

I think the real problem would be the time required to look at all
the shots and weed out the bad ones with a 1GB card full.

Cullen

Paul Sumi said:

Thanks all for the feedback. I thought I had read that > 2 gigs
needed Fat32 support, but wasn't sure.

I'm thinking that 512 meg cards are now in the "sweet spot" re:
cost/benefit. I suspect that this is also the minimum practical
size when I finally jump to a interchangeable lens DSLR.

The Canon 10D looks very tempting, but I think I'm holding out for
another year. Or I win the lotto [g].

Best,

Paul

vjsilva said:

--VJS

Tim Corcoran said:

Paul Sumi said:

What is the largest capacity CF card that will work in the E-10. I
presume it's 1 gig, but will larger sizes (2+ gig) also work?

Click to expand...

Paul,

AFAIK the controller for CF is onboard the card (unlike SmartMedia)
which means that the E-10 should accept any CF card that is
compliant with the standard.

Tim

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Michel60506 · Mar 11, 2003

You are right, GageFX, as for computer stuff, more than 2 GB partition requires FAT32. It is about 2.1 GB the frontier. As for E-10 I don't know hot it works with cards larger than 2 GB.

Michel

GageFX said:
-GAgeFX

Paul Sumi said:

Thanks all for the feedback. I thought I had read that > 2 gigs
needed Fat32 support, but wasn't sure.

I'm thinking that 512 meg cards are now in the "sweet spot" re:
cost/benefit. I suspect that this is also the minimum practical
size when I finally jump to a interchangeable lens DSLR.

The Canon 10D looks very tempting, but I think I'm holding out for
another year. Or I win the lotto [g].

Best,

Paul

vjsilva said:

--VJS

Tim Corcoran said:

Paul Sumi said:

What is the largest capacity CF card that will work in the E-10. I
presume it's 1 gig, but will larger sizes (2+ gig) also work?

Click to expand...

Paul,

AFAIK the controller for CF is onboard the card (unlike SmartMedia)
which means that the E-10 should accept any CF card that is
compliant with the standard.

Tim

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Paul Sumi · Mar 11, 2003

Hi GageFX,

You're right, of course. OT, I think it's hilarious that I'm researching CF cards with capacity equal or greater than the 512 megs on my PC.

Best,

Paul

GageFX said:
Hey Paul, I believe it isnt "> 2G needs fat32" but I believe it is
"> =2G needs fat32". Which is to say, I believe less than 2G is the
max.

-GAgeFX

vjsilva · Mar 12, 2003

This is true for FAT but not as true for FAT32.

Check out this table:

Volume Size FAT16 Cluster Size FAT32 Cluster Size NTFS Cluster Size

---------------- -------------------------- ------------------------- ----------------------
7 MB–16 MB 2 KB Not supported 512 bytes
17 MB–32 MB 512 bytes Not supported 512 bytes
33 MB–64 MB 1 KB 512 bytes 512 bytes
65 MB–128 MB 2 KB 1 KB 512 bytes
129 MB–256 MB 4 KB 2 KB 512 bytes
257 MB–512 MB 8 KB 4 KB 512 bytes
513 MB–1,024 MB 16 KB 4 KB 1 KB
1,025 MB–2 GB 32 KB 4 KB 2 KB
2 GB–4 GB 64 KB 4 KB 4 KB
4 GB–8 GB Not supported 4 KB 4 KB
8 GB–16 GB Not supported 8 KB 4 KB
16 GB–32 GB Not supported 16 KB 4 KB

Also the inefficiencies come about when a large number of very small files are stored on a device formatted with a large cluster size. This is due to the fact that the minimum file size is one cluster. So if you have a 2GB hard disk formatted in FAT the cluster size will be 64KB. If you then put 10,000 files on it and each file is only a couple of bytes long, every single file is still taking up a full 64KB. SO you'll have about 10,000 * 64KB of wasted space. This won't happen on a digital camera because most images are quite large nowadays. So the worst case waste is one byte less than the cluster size being used per image.

--VJS

Kurt B said:
vjsilva said:

--VJS

Tim Corcoran said:

Paul Sumi said:

What is the largest capacity CF card that will work in the E-10. I
presume it's 1 gig, but will larger sizes (2+ gig) also work?

Click to expand...

Paul,

AFAIK the controller for CF is onboard the card (unlike SmartMedia)
which means that the E-10 should accept any CF card that is
compliant with the standard.

Tim

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

vjsilva · Mar 12, 2003

After I nicely formatted this table the forum script goes and strips the spaces!

Trees · Mar 12, 2003

Paul:

I'm not sure what other people's oppinions are, but I come from the "don't put all you eggs in one basket" line of thinking.

Though I'm relatively new to digital photography (15 years 35mm) I've been shooting video professionally for 12 years.

If given the chance to shoot on 1, 2 hour tape or 2, 1 hour tapes, I'll always take the latter. (Assuming I don't need an uninterupted 2 hours.)

If something happens to the only tape I've got, I might be sunk but with the second tape at least I've got half of what I shot.

Obviously your cost per megabyte is higher with multiple cards but it does give a little more protection.

Trees

Let us know what you find!

Paul Sumi · Mar 12, 2003

Trees,

I definitely agree with your philosophy, using multiple cards myself. I'm exploring larger capacity cards because I want the option to capture a reasonable number of RAW files on the E, and for use when I eventually move to an interchangeable lens DSLR.

Best,

Paul

Trees said:
Paul:

I'm not sure what other people's oppinions are, but I come from the
"don't put all you eggs in one basket" line of thinking.

Though I'm relatively new to digital photography (15 years 35mm)
I've been shooting video professionally for 12 years.

If given the chance to shoot on 1, 2 hour tape or 2, 1 hour tapes,
I'll always take the latter. (Assuming I don't need an
uninterupted 2 hours.)

If something happens to the only tape I've got, I might be sunk but
with the second tape at least I've got half of what I shot.

Obviously your cost per megabyte is higher with multiple cards but
it does give a little more protection.

Trees

Let us know what you find!

Glenn Whitten · Mar 12, 2003

You make a good point re: diversifying your "media risk" by using multiple storage volumes. However, let me present another perspective.

When I bought my E-10 a year ago I had the option of 2-256MB cards or 1 512MB card. I chose the single card using the following rationale:

the cards are very small and easily dropped, misplaced, or otherwise lost, especially in the heat of shooting something important...the verytype of environment that I would be most likely to need a lot of images.

by having a single, large card in the camera, I am able to format the card prior to the event, close it up in the camera, and forget it.

Because of the nature of the digital beast I can instantly see if there is a problem. There is no possiblility of "misthreaded" film, a broken advance mechanism, or a "bad tape". The reliability of solid state memory is such that, it either works or it doesn't.

Even though I do all my work using the 512MB CF card, I take advantage of the E-10's dual memory slots and leave a 128MB SmartMedia card in the camera all the time. This serves as my "emergency backup/overflow" but still allows me to close the camera at home and have nothing but the usual chaos of flash cords, lenses, and people to deal with on site.

The way I look at it, every variable that I can remove allows me to focus more on the shot...I'm also terrified of losing a card ;->

On the other hand...I don't want to get a card so big that I have weeks of images sitting out there getting old. If something were to happen ( like my camera being stolen) I'd be SOL. So I try to clear out the card to my computer and burn a master CD quite often. -Works for me...

Regards,

Glenn

Trees said:
I'm not sure what other people's oppinions are, but I come from the
"don't put all you eggs in one basket" line of thinking.

vjsilva · Mar 12, 2003

CF cards very rarely fail. It's more likely that your shutter will fail before the CF card will. I always get the largest that can be used in the camera.

Most of the failures I've seen here in this forum were attributed to removal and insertion of the cards. I got the largest card I could get, 1GB, and usually never take it out of the camera. I use the cable to download the images.

--VJS

Glenn Whitten said:
When I bought my E-10 a year ago I had the option of 2-256MB cards
or 1 512MB card. I chose the single card using the following
rationale:

the cards are very small and easily dropped, misplaced, or

otherwise lost, especially in the heat of shooting something
important...the verytype of environment that I would be most likely
to need a lot of images.

by having a single, large card in the camera, I am able to format

the card prior to the event, close it up in the camera, and forget
it.

Because of the nature of the digital beast I can instantly see if
there is a problem. There is no possiblility of "misthreaded" film,
a broken advance mechanism, or a "bad tape". The reliability of
solid state memory is such that, it either works or it doesn't.

Even though I do all my work using the 512MB CF card, I take
advantage of the E-10's dual memory slots and leave a 128MB
SmartMedia card in the camera all the time. This serves as my
"emergency backup/overflow" but still allows me to close the camera
at home and have nothing but the usual chaos of flash cords,
lenses, and people to deal with on site.

The way I look at it, every variable that I can remove allows me to
focus more on the shot...I'm also terrified of losing a card ;->

On the other hand...I don't want to get a card so big that I have
weeks of images sitting out there getting old. If something were to
happen ( like my camera being stolen) I'd be SOL. So I try to clear
out the card to my computer and burn a master CD quite often.
-Works for me...

Regards,

Glenn

Trees said:

I'm not sure what other people's oppinions are, but I come from the
"don't put all you eggs in one basket" line of thinking.

Click to expand...

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