Guess I should interject - Until fairly recently I had only been using CF cards. Three Lexar 512mb 40X WA, One Kingston 1mb (slow) and one Dane Elec 512mb (slow). I picked up a new 4gb Hitachi microdrive (latest version) and have done quite a bit of shooting (6000 or so) with all of them. I am shooting raw and so write speed is of concern. For all of this, I have been shooting baseball games (as league action photographer) and only shooting raw. Full buffers are of some issue to me. In testing all the cards, I have found that there is no write speed difference in the *istD when writing out raw to card with full buffer between the Lexar 40x cards and the microdrive. Battery life seems a bit shorter, but not by that much - certainly not enough to bother me. The two slow cards are almost unusable for me as the shot to shot time on a full buffer is about 5-6 seconds slower than the 40x cards and microdrive.
All that being said, I am seeing the price of the microdrives being about 2 times cheaper. It is still a viable alternative, but not quite as compelling as in the past. I still need CF cards as my CompactDrive won't allow me to download a microdrive to it. So once it is full, I am done with that card until I can dump it on a computer. With the regular compactflash cards, I can dump them to the CompactDrive and start shooting again. -- Best regards, Bruce Tuesday, May 24, 2005, 4:12:16 PM, you wrote: TC> Hi Rob, TC> But for the larger sizes, microdrives are 1/3 to 1/4 the cost of CF. TC> I don't care that a microdrive may be a second or so slower than a CF card. TC> It's usually many seconds or minutes before I'm taking the next shot. With TC> the *ist D's small buffer, if I was shooting in rapid succession, I'd fill TC> up the buffer and be waiting awhile anyway, to get the next shot off. TC> I haven't noticed a huge battery drain with a microdrive... I haven't paid TC> much attention, but I would think that the power drain would need to be TC> significant for a casual observer to notice it. TC> I've had the 1GB microdrive for 3+ years. Never a problem. I carry TC> laptops on a daily basis and with their huge hard drives, have only had 1 TC> fail once in 7 years. TC> The microdrives are, IMO, an inexpensive, well engineered device, that are TC> good for their intended purpose. It's not like using CF is a guarantee TC> against disaster, and using a microdrive is asking for it. TC> I might not advocate using microdrives exclusively, but having a couple as TC> inexpensive alternatives to CF is not a bad way to go. TC> Tom C. >>From: "Rob Studdert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>Reply-To: [email protected] >>To: [email protected] >>Subject: Re: CF card: normal or Microdrive? >>Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 08:50:46 +1000 >> >>On 24 May 2005 at 16:50, Thibouille wrote: >> >> > I guess normal is: >> > * faster ? >> > * less power consumption >> > >> > while Microdrive is: >> > * cheaper :D >> > >> > While I'm at it, does High Speed card really matter in a D/Ds? Or is >> > it only useful when reading back in a card reader on the Computer? >> >>I just rid myself of a 4GB Microdrive, though I never had problems with it >>I >>could see the day fast approaching. MDs really chew into battery power in >>the >>camera and external battery powered storage devices, they are a bit slow to >>start up and slower than solid state memory to R/W (noticeable in camera, >>*ist >>D). >> >>The fact that they are a small mechanical device that is prone to damage by >>sloppy handling and such high capacity is an eventual recipe for disaster. >>I'm >>ploughing the money back into solid state cards which I have never had a >>problem with and which I have occasionally unintentionally mishandled. The >>advantage in cost/GB isn't worth it from my experience. >> >>Cheers, >> >> >>Rob Studdert >>HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA >>Tel +61-2-9554-4110 >>UTC(GMT) +10 Hours >>[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/ >>Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998 >>
