Dig. Camera

[Evan Leibovitch]

FWIW, the camera I have is a Canon that takes the large (and cheapest!)
Compact Flash cards. Personally I like Canon and Olympus and Fujis, you
can't go wrong with any of them IMO.


IMO there are three issues related to cards, mainly all stemming from
issues of availability. The comments below apply to cards used in
cameras, as well as the growing number of smartphones that also use
flash memory cards.



1) Price -- while name-brand SD and xD cards are about the same price
for the same capacity, it's easier to find cheaper off-brands for SD.
The Sandisk prices for 2GB cards are between $80-90 for both SD and xD.
However, there are many more brands available for SD, one of them now
offering 2GB cards for $25 (after rebate at tigerdirect) and many others
at less than $40. (One company even sells a 4GB SD card for less than
the cost for a 2GB xD card.)

The bottom line: Consider the extra cost of the card when assessing the
full price of the camera. You're going to need an extra card anyway, as
most of the ones included with the cameras are tiny and not too uselful
beyond demos. Many stores like FutureShop can (and will if you press)
drop the price of a card as an incentive to get you to buy a particular
model camera.


2) Readers -- For my last PC purchase, I was able to find a floppy drive
that included a bunch of card readers, within the same form factor:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1265795&CatId=630
-- it contains an SD reader but not an xD reader. Many of the "7-in-1"
USB card readers don't have xD slots, for licensing of whatever reasons.
You can still get a USB reader for xD,
such as
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2415753&CatId=962
, but they're not as common.

The bottom line: these days, most people use a USB cable to hook their
cameras directly to their computers (which works fine under most modern
versions of Linux). They only take out the memory card when going to a
commercial photo printer like Black's or Costco, whose systems generally
read xD cards. Given the capcity of today's cards, you'll likely not
need to swap them because you ran out of room. While using the USB cable
does use battery power, consider that drain is minimal since the big
power sucks on the camera -- the viewscreen and lens movements -- are
usually off during PC transfers. In any case, many cameras already use
rechargables -- and IMO the wear-and-tear of frequent removal of the
memory card isn't worth the benefit. On some cameras that I've seen, the
battery-access mechanisms and doors appear more robust than the ones
used to protect the flash cards.


3) Long term availability -- fewer sources of xD cards means that it
will likely be harder to find them once they become obsoleted by the
next generation of cards, which will happen long before your camera
stops being usable.

The bottom line: unless you do a lot of poster-size high-rez shooting,
one or two high-capacity cards bought now should probably be all you
need for the life of the camera, especially if you frequently download
photos to a PC then delete them off the card. If you're paranoid, wait
untill just after the cards become obsoleted and by a few more at
bargain bin prices. So this isn't much of an issue.


HTH,

- Evan
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