So.....which flash card to buy for a 20D?

[Graham Butler]

I am about to take the plunge into the digital world and have been looking around at all the accessories. With all the different brands and speeds of flash cards which am I going to need? If I was to go buy one right now I would likely get the Lexar 80x 2gig card which is in the neighborhood of $210.....but then again I am new to the whole world of flash cards. Which ones should I avoid? Which ones should I look at?

thanks

Graham Butler
graham.butler at ttu.edu

 

[David Wolfson]

SanDisk and Lexar both have 1Gb CF now in the $70-$90 range. I think the SanDisk I saw at Costco was their Ultra (high speed). It's a good idea IMO to have multiple cards (and batteries) so there's always a spare in the bag. Prices on CF have been dropping about 50% per year.

 

[John Erwin]

Never buy the newest, largest size available; you'll regret it a few months later. Like David said, you can get great deals on 1 GB and smaller cards right now.

I personally prefer the Lexar cards, they've always worked well for me. I did have some trouble with Sandisk (once a compatibility issue and another time the card fell apart!) and have never gone back, but I tend to stick to a brand once I'm satisfied with it.

 

[bvassmer]

I use 2 SanDisk Ultra II 1 GB I got for about 90$ each. They work great in my 20D. I get about 100 RAW 8MP photos on each, and much more if I used JPEG. As for performace, they seem to been the best balance of money/speed.

 

[Darin Brunin]

I use Lexar Cards and couldn't be happier with them. It's better to get a few smaller cards than 1 large one since the are pretty small and would probably be easy to lose. Stick to name brands becuase I feel like it does make a difference.

Darin

 

[Tony Laubach]

I have Compact Flash which are great as well... you can get a USB adapter on eBay for like $7 which makes the card like its own hard drive as well as easily pulling the pictures without having to directly hook up the camera.

As for size, I have (4) 256MB CF cards... I do this in case one goes, I'm only out 256 as opposed to the 1GB... 256MB holds on my 4MP camera about ten rolls of film.

My suggestion...

 

[Mike Sharp]

Although I don't use them much for pictures- see below.
I use 256 CF cards.
Both my PDA's take them and by using a card reader permanently attached to my main PC , and a CF to PMICA( always spell that one wrong) adaptor for the laptop. I use them for data when I want to transfer stuff from one PC to another.
My camera uses MMC or SD cards and I have about half a dozen of these, mainly 128,because they also fit my old MP3 player and I had them for that before I got the camera and PDA's
The bigger bonus is you don't have to spend so long going through a big card to transfer to the main PC.
My Avatar was shot using a Sony Camera Phone and downloaded using Bluetooth.

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

You'll want much larger cards than 256mb for the 20D... I'd probably go with 512min... preferably 2-3 1gig cards. I have yet to have a CF card fail on me. I've had good luck with Transcend 45x cards.

Aaron

 

[Graham Butler]

Thanks for the advice. I think I have a pretty good idea of which to get.

thanks again

Graham Butler