Memory cards for the *istD

Hi,
I have always thought that the 24-90 zoom would be great for the MZ-S. The two 28-70's are great but one is huge and the other was just a little short in range. I don't like the quality of the 28-80/90's but wanted single lens to travel light sometimes. Some of the recent talk convinced me that I really needed one but the cost was all around £350. So I started looking around. Digital camera had them in for £359 which seemed reasonable BUT if I paid £854 I could have an *istD as well which meant it was less than £500. A george would say, it would be silly not to at this price! What was really surprising is that the other half agreed

So with a new toy arriving next week, I am going to have to start with the silly question but I promise I will get round to reading the manual

The first one is about memory cards. Having followed many of the threads, one of the criticisms of the camera is it's slow transfer rate. There are now several versions of memory card from 20x and various other rates up to 80x with increasing cost. It seems silly to pay a heavy premium for a "fast" card if it makes no difference because they are faster than the camera. Do these fast cards make any difference in the *ist?

Kim

Hi Kim

Your tempting me, I'm toying with the notion of getting another body for my wife but was leaning more to the DS, have to do a bit of rethinking now.

I have both Scandisk Type 1 (20x I think) and Ultra Type II (60x) and to be honest I don't see any difference when used in the *istD. The type 1 is a bit slower than the type II when saving to the PC (use a card reader) but to me this is not a problem that the extra cost justifies.

If I assume correctly, this is your first foray into digital SLR with the *istD, when using at home or in a studio you have to try the Remote Assitant, connect to a PC or laptop (USB) and control all funtions (assume you have auto focus lens on camera) and see a BIG picture instantly and no need for a CF card to be installed.

Hi Brian,
Yes I was more worried about camera speed than downloading to PC. I do have a DSLR and have had it for about 2 years, it's a Minolta RD3000 with the full range of lenses from 17mm to 400 mirror. The problem is that it was in the era before the "fast" and large cards. So much so, that it's interface with the PC is SCSI. Even though it is only 3MP, it does me quite nicely. The main reason for the change is that if I want to mix film and digital, I won't have to lug 2 full camera bags around

Kim

Congratulations, Kim,

Not only are the PDSLRs very competent pieces of kit, but they are beautifully built, and an absolute pleasure just to hold in the hand, let alone to use.

As for the 24-90 zoom, I ended up buying one after considering all the options. It's a pretty good performer, although it doesn't focus well in poor light. It feels rather flimsy compared to the F series zooms and the power zooms, and one does wonder why it costs so much.

At the end of the day, though, it delivers the goods, and I don't think there is a better alternative as a general purpose zoom on a DSLR. The top end is great for tight portraits. The 28-105 power zoom is also a very good lens, but doesn't go quite as wide. I'd choose it for film, and the 24-90 for digital.

Happy shooting.

G

(Back on thread...)
Kim, I originally bought an Fuji/IBM 1Gb Microdrive with my *ist-D.
Slow was the word. About 5 seconds to boot up, and a slow transfer rate.

Next was a Lexar 1Gb 40x WA card (which cost me nearly £200 from Dabs.com). Amazing speed improvement. Very fast start up time, and good RAW performance. Now I have a Lexar 2Gb 80x WA and it flies (Bought it for around £130 from www.dabs.com) - not twice as fast as the 40x, but still faster.

Hope that helps
Matt

Hi Kim,

I too have recently taken the plunge into the world of DSLR's but only when I'd managed to find the kit at the right price. Before I went off and picked up the CF Cards, I had a quick look round the various threads on here for some advice... In the end I decided to go for the Lexar 80x 2GB versions which seem to operate just as fast as the camera can. RAW's and TIFF's are a bit slow but was out the other morning at Newmarket shooting the horses (not literally...) on the gallops with the drive set at continuous to see how well the burst worked with the best quality JPEG setting. Yes it was possible to fill the buffer up quite rapidly but if I took the camera down from my eye to check when the next string of horses was coming up by the time I was ready to shoot again the buffer had cleared - can't ask for much more than that???

Would recommend http://www.picstop.co.uk/compactflash.htm - the lexar cards are £129 with scandisk at £134 and their delivery service is super F A S T....

Hope this helps,

Will

Hi,

Writing with some knowledge on the subject of data storage in general, the primary thought one must always have is how reliable is the source of performance test data. To put it another way,... what is says on the tin is not always replicated in reality. There are very many variables to consider:
1. The equipment that is hosting the storage medium (ie. Camera or PC)

2. The destination equipment (ie. PC, Camera, Printer)

3. The transfer medium (ie, cable type, data transfer path)

These are only a few that will scupper any claims the manufacturer makes.

When you look at cost per Mb or Gb it is rarely a linear relationship. This is because the latest and greatest has a premium attached; a simple rule of business.

Consider what is good enough for your needs, ... do you want "leading edge" technology or "bleeding edge". The latter will keep you up with the 'Joneses',.... at a price, but being immature in the marketplace it is occasionaly prone to teething problems.

Happy shopping.

C

Recently bought a 512Mb byteStor SD card from Amazon for use with my new *ist DS. Cheap card, but writes quickly and transfers fine with RAW and JPEG files. Good inexpensive way to go

Until recently I was using a 1Gb microdrive with my *istD, which was slow but not as slow as Mattmatic's sounds. I now have a 1Gb 80x Lexar card bought from the states on ebay which is faster, but not as much of an improvement as you might imagine. It's certainly much faster for transferring files to computer, but on the camera in most situations it only seems to cut the time to write a file by about 30%. And yes, I have sat there with stopwatch in one hand and camera in the other. For me, the modest speed improvement was well worth it, but don't expect 80x to mean 80 times faster!

Oh, and I'm not on commission, but the Lexar 80x cards come with free image recovery software, which is really handy if you haven't got any already.

To me the startup time of the Microdrive (at least my one, which was an IBM, badged as Fuji, and could well have been two or three years old) was the one big failing. With a CF card proper the *ist-D boots up very quickly. I missed many opportunities (especially with the kids) when using the Microdrive.

You are right that 80x is not the "real" speed. The card speed denotes how fast you can read data from the card. 1x = 150k per second. The write speed is related, but not always obviously, and is always slower than the read speed. You have to check on the manufacturer's website to find out, or profile the performance of the card.

The WA technology of the Lexar cards shaves a little off the time (they say 10-15% I think), because the communication between the WA-enabled camera and the card doesn't require as many messages to write data. And yes, the 80x card is much faster than the camera can write to anyway.

The other thing about Microdrives is they can't cope with shocks. I had a "blip" where I put the camera down on a table (not roughly, but it made a noise), and the Microdrive wouldn't write anymore until I'd formatted it. Likewise, a friend of mine has his 1Gb go AWOL for almost no apparent reason and lost all his pics in his Canon G2. Managed to rescue most of them with some recovery software and reformat in the PC. Never had a problem, so far, with real CF cards

Note that the *ist-DS seems to have an updated CPU, since it handles USB2.0, as opposed to the *ist-D's USB1. So, maybe the *ist-DS is faster at writing anyway?

Matt