Tips for handling CF card?

dhawald3

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I am a newcomer to digital photography.

here are some of my questions.

IS it safe to connect the camera to the pc to transfer the pictures??

If using a card reader and removing CF card from the camera(switched off),should batteries be removed??

thanks in advance.
 
Yep should be perfectly safe, turn the camera off before plugging in to be sure though.

No need to remove batteries, just turn the camera off. Technically as long as it's not reading/writing you could yank it with the camera on as I don't believe they use write caching, however I still wouldn't recommend it.
 
... CF cameras have survived being run over by cars and mine has even gone through the washing machine.

They are virtually indestructible. Short of taking it and hooking it directly into your powerpoint you can't really break them if you're plugging them into the right socket.
 
salt water causes death.

do not drop them in the ocean.

if you do, rinse with clear water, dry for some hours and then quickly read the data. it will be dead soon afterwards because of progressing corrosion.
 
^^^^^^
Is this someone speaking from experience?

And I have always transferred the data from the CF card right into the computer via the cable that came with the camera, I have never so far used a card reader or anything of the kind. To me that seemed to be the way of doing things... I never questioned it.
 
^^^^^^
Is this someone speaking from experience?

And I have always transferred the data from the CF card right into the computer via the cable that came with the camera, I have never so far used a card reader or anything of the kind. To me that seemed to be the way of doing things... I never questioned it.

I saw tests on TV where they did it that way. just testing the effect of salt water on the cards. the cards were after rinsing and drying actually still working for a day or so.



as for downloading, using a card reader is way way faster. the fastest are often those card readers built into the computer.
 
I was always linking my camera to the computer and then I read somewhere that if something goes wrong or surges or whatever that it would be much better to lose a card and a cheap-o reader than the camera. I can't see it happening, but after that I've always used the card reader. I like it 'cause I leave the reader on the shelf and I can just grab it when I need it instead of having to find or leave the cable hanging around.
 
^^^^^^
Is this someone speaking from experience?

And I have always transferred the data from the CF card right into the computer via the cable that came with the camera, I have never so far used a card reader or anything of the kind. To me that seemed to be the way of doing things... I never questioned it.

It is one way of doing it but there are a couple of downsides:

1) slower than card reader
2) battery is on and discharging at rapid rate (limited number of recycles on expensive camera battery)
3) expensive camera is sitting with cable drooping - subject to being yanked off table by heedless chair movements (this happened to me once in pre-card reader days.)
4) multiple cards worth of pix mean re-inserting and removing cards in camera. My camera cost lots, my card reader little - I'd rather wear that out.
 
I do it both ways. USB cable if I'm lazy, but I use a card reader if I have a lot of pics, since it's faster to transfer. Also when I use the card reader, sometimes I remember to rotate in a different card so they all get used evenly.

You can get cheap card readers these days, they are like USB thumb drives, but you stick the card in the side. Less than $10 USD, I believe.

My only other tip is to format the card in the camera occasionally.
 

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