SD or CF

Besides Pentax opting to stick with 6mp, why did they choose the SD card for storage? Most other manufacturer's chose CF cards. The new Olympus gives you a choice of the CF or XD. The SD card only goes up to 1gig....while CF cards are way up to 4gb?

I feel the SD card is a draw back.

Living in confusion!!

- Ali

The SD card is very compact so cameras can be smaller. It is also very stable so there should be few technical problems. The Nikon D50 also opts for SD and I think more will follow. perhaps soon we will think CF flash cards are enormous unwieldy things!

I did also think at first that SD cards were a drawback, but it hasn't been a problem.

As regards capacity, I prefer anyway to use more smaller cards (256 or 512MB) because if there ever was a card failure I would lose fewer pictures.

At least three manufacturuers are offering 4GB SD cards, or will do so shortly.

The present *ist D range is aimed primarily at people upgrading from compact p&s cameras. Guess what sort of card most of them use.

There are MUCH more important things to worry about than memory cards.

G

I've written to Pentax proposing that the next *st D (*st D2??) have a slot big enough for a CF card, but with a removable adapter for SD cards. Such adapters exist, you could buy SD cards and the adapter and slip them into the *st D if you wanted to!

Smaller cards will always have less capacity than larger ones with the same technology. Maybe some sooper-dooper memory storage system will come out allowing 8GB SD cards. but I think if Pentax wants to avoid alienating all the pros and enthusiasts with substntial investments in CF cards, they'd use a dual-slot system or a removable sleeve so the new cameras could still use those very expensive 2 GB and 4 GB (even 8 GB) CF cards!