Optimum Flashcard For S2

[Dr Peter Harrington]

Ladies and Gentlemen...

As I get ready to fire up the S2, is there a brand of card that is optimal, and/or one that is the worst? Do microdrives work well? A little suggestion from you who've been shooting with a variety of brands and capacities would be helpful. Thanks.

Dr Peter Harrington

 

[Teski]

The CF card/Microdrive thing has been discussed so many times in the last 9 - 10 months since the S2 has been out. Try running some searches first. Here's one link to some write speed comparisons:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6014

Teski

Ladies and Gentlemen...

As I get ready to fire up the S2, is there a brand of card that is
optimal, and/or one that is the worst? Do microdrives work well? A
little suggestion from you who've been shooting with a variety of
brands and capacities would be helpful. Thanks.

Dr Peter Harrington

 

[majic]

I would certainly recommend Transcend.

The Transcend 30/32x high speed compact flash cards are cheap (not the cheapest, but by far the cheapest brand-brand card with high performance) , they offer excellent long-term warranty, and I can only say that I have used various transcend cards for over 3 years now without a flaw to be found.

I myself have the 512 mb 32 speed card..and it equals my 1 gig microdrive, and sometimes outpaces. Obviously it is much less fragile - my microdrive is littered with badsectors .

• michael

Ladies and Gentlemen...

As I get ready to fire up the S2, is there a brand of card that is
optimal, and/or one that is the worst? Do microdrives work well? A
little suggestion from you who've been shooting with a variety of
brands and capacities would be helpful. Thanks.

Dr Peter Harrington

--

Fuji S2 Pro ~ Micro Nikkor 60 mm F2.8 ~ 24-85 AF-S ~ 80-200D ~ 80-200 AF-S F2.8 ~ http://www.majic.nl/mdk

 

[Mike Flood]

The days of the IBM (now Hitachi) 1 gig drive are now gone. The cost per megabyte combined with the ruggedness and more likely reliability of Compact Flash cards make the CF's the device of choice regardless of size.

In my S2 I have sucessfully used Lexar 256meg, Ridata 512 meg and now a Transcend 1 Gig. The only thing I DON'T LIKE in the Transcend 1 gig is that they use 32 megs to hold firmware that makes the card look like an IDE hard drive to your PC. Thus you lose some storage capacity. Example:
A 1 Gig Microdrive will hold 80 S2 Raw files. The Transcend will only hold 77.

I don't know if all CF cards are like this or not. The Transcend is my 1st one Gig CF card. I was told by a (former) Microdrive dealer that they found out that the warranty on the Microdrives started the minute they were manufactured. Thus if a dealer has one on his shelf for awhile before you buy it then you get somewhat less than a year's warranty. Warranty (if any) is handled direct to IBM/Hitachi from the user not thru the dealer.

IBM will NOT repair any out of warranty drives. (Probably would keep them too busy)

The Transcend cards have a 5 year warranty. You can register your card on line at the Transcend web site.
These things are only going to get faster, bigger and cheaper.

Mike Flood

 

[steve schneider]

Where can I order a Transcend card? Do they sell retail or online?

I myself have the 512 mb 32 speed card..and it equals my 1 gig
microdrive, and sometimes outpaces. Obviously it is much less
fragile - my microdrive is littered with badsectors .

• michael

Ladies and Gentlemen...

As I get ready to fire up the S2, is there a brand of card that is
optimal, and/or one that is the worst? Do microdrives work well? A
little suggestion from you who've been shooting with a variety of
brands and capacities would be helpful. Thanks.

Dr Peter Harrington

--
Fuji S2 Pro ~ Micro Nikkor 60 mm F2.8 ~ 24-85 AF-S ~ 80-200D ~
80-200 AF-S F2.8 ~ http://www.majic.nl/mdk

--
Stitch

 

[hy104973]

The days of the IBM (now Hitachi) 1 gig drive are now gone. The
cost per megabyte combined with the ruggedness and more likely
reliability of Compact Flash cards make the CF's the device of
choice regardless of size.
In my S2 I have sucessfully used Lexar 256meg, Ridata 512 meg and
now a Transcend 1 Gig. The only thing I DON'T LIKE in the
Transcend 1 gig is that they use 32 megs to hold firmware that
makes the card look like an IDE hard drive to your PC. Thus you
lose some storage capacity. Example:
A 1 Gig Microdrive will hold 80 S2 Raw files. The Transcend will
only hold 77.
I don't know if all CF cards are like this or not. The Transcend
is my 1st one Gig CF card. I was told by a (former) Microdrive
dealer that they found out that the warranty on the Microdrives
started the minute they were manufactured. Thus if a dealer has one
on his shelf for awhile before you buy it then you get somewhat
less than a year's warranty. Warranty (if any) is handled direct to
IBM/Hitachi from the user not thru the dealer.
IBM will NOT repair any out of warranty drives. (Probably would
keep them too busy)
The Transcend cards have a 5 year warranty. You can register your
card on line at the Transcend web site.
These things are only going to get faster, bigger and cheaper.

Mike Flood

--my microdrive went tits up in warranty...took over a month to get a replacement. go digital.
hy

 

[Joe Lacy]

I sold all my microdives and bought 4 of these cards. I keep them fresh with this software.

http://www.mediarecover.com/

 

[Teski]

http://www.canogacamera.com
http://www.powerinnumbers.com.au
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com

I got mine at Canoga.

Teski

I myself have the 512 mb 32 speed card..and it equals my 1 gig
microdrive, and sometimes outpaces. Obviously it is much less
fragile - my microdrive is littered with badsectors .

• michael

Ladies and Gentlemen...

As I get ready to fire up the S2, is there a brand of card that is
optimal, and/or one that is the worst? Do microdrives work well? A
little suggestion from you who've been shooting with a variety of
brands and capacities would be helpful. Thanks.

Dr Peter Harrington

--
Fuji S2 Pro ~ Micro Nikkor 60 mm F2.8 ~ 24-85 AF-S ~ 80-200D ~
80-200 AF-S F2.8 ~ http://www.majic.nl/mdk

--
Stitch

 

[choilp]

I have two 1GB microdrives for almost a year. Still work well.

But recently bought two 1GB Transcend CF, did some simple tests, found them to be equally fast on S2, but faster startup time, no noise, more prone to bump, occupy less space in my camera bag, and probably if it is to be used on some other cameras, it can work faster than the microdrives (you may see different CF performance on Rob's site). You may never know when you have the chance to use the CF on other cameras, maybe your friends', maybe your next one, maybe....

They are now cheaper than microdrive. Just can't justify anymore to have microdrive.

LP

Ladies and Gentlemen...

As I get ready to fire up the S2, is there a brand of card that is
optimal, and/or one that is the worst? Do microdrives work well? A
little suggestion from you who've been shooting with a variety of
brands and capacities would be helpful. Thanks.

Dr Peter Harrington