Memory Card Speed

[Scott WRG Editor]

I have a Sandisk Ultra II 2gb compact flash card for my 20D and it is very fast. A friend has an Olympus E-10 and he wanted to know if the faster card would allow his camera to write faster. We tried my card but we didn't format it as it had pics on it already. It didn't seem to be any faster. Would it be faster if we formated it with his camera or is he just out of luck?

 

[Chase]

You'll probably find that most of the digital cameras are the weak link when it comes to write speed rather than the memory cards.

The 20d is very fast, along with the D70 and a few other relatively high-end cameras. Other than a relative few high-speed digitals, I'd imagine the slower speed cards will not have a problem keeping up with the majority of the cameras on the market.

 

[Chase]

A little extra info, according to dpreview.com.

E-10: 3 fps, 4 images
20D: 5 fps up to 23 JPEG frames
D70: 3 fps, up to 12 JPEG frames

That kind of gives you an idea of how much data is being sent to the card and what the different cameras are capable of.

 

[binfordtools]

Here is a great link talking about card speed :http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6816