[Gamoe]

The other day I was at a birthday party taking pictures and I had to stop because my Canon's CF card was full. When I got it, the 256MB card proved more than enough for my 5MP Canon, but since I've upgraded to a 7MP camera, it no longer seems sufficient for long events. Therefore, I've decided to go ahead and buy a new CF card. I am delighted to see how they've significantly dropped in price and I'd like to aim for a 2 GB card, to squash any reasonable capacity concerns.

However, probably my biggest gripe with the imposed delay between taking one photo and another. I figure maybe a card with a better write access time could help ease this issue. But, I've not found a lot of concrete info on which cards are fastest or how to tell. Some manufacturers put speeds in terms of MB/sec, other in "50X" format, and still others don't bother at all. So, how do I know which is indeed the fastest? I don't mind spending a bit more for a faster card, but I don't want to spend more unnecessarily, as it is often true that the most expensive item is not necessarily the best (or fastest, in this case).

These are the 2GB cards NewEgg has at the moment, BTW. Any good info or suggestions?

[mduell]

The "x" speeds for flash media is the same as the speeds for CD-ROM drives... 1x is 150KBps. Keep in mind that these are nice theoretical peak rates and the actual rates will vary (and inevitably be lower).

I don't know enough to say if the delay between shots is due to writing the shot to memory or your camera doing the compression/procession, so a faster card may not help.

Newegg.com - SanDisk Ultra II 2GB Compact Flash (CF) Flash Media - Retail is always a good buy with great write speeds.

[ghporter]

Also note that the camera is the ultimate limiting factor; I have noticed that, no matter whether I use a "high speed" CF card or not, some cameras just take longer to save a picture than others. If your current camera saves in "RAW" format, it's probably faster than one that saves in "JPG" format. This is also true of other flash media.

[Goldfinger]

What camera is it ? Keep in mind that buying a fast memory card for most non-SLR cameras is pointless because they can't even send data to the card fast enough. I would buy anything faster than a SanDisk Ultra II to bo honest.

BTW: those Transcend cards are good and cheap.

[Gamoe]

True, I am not sure it would actually make a difference. I have a Canon PowerShot G6. It does save RAW images as well as JPEGs. I'm not sure about Transcend, but I was thinking of going with the Kingston Elite Pro or even the SimpleTech if it doesn't make a difference.