Naive question about memory cards.
 

Having given my trusty Pentax 43WR to my son to take to Iraq I am in
the market for a new point and shoot camera and memory card. Some
advertisements imply that the higher speed cards inable one to take
better action shots. My question: do higher speed cards have any
advantage other than reducing the time it takes for the camera to
recover between shots?

Naive question about memory cards.
 

On 2006-02-21, R. Frist wrote:
Having given my trusty Pentax 43WR to my son to take to Iraq I am in
the market for a new point and shoot camera and memory card. Some
advertisements imply that the higher speed cards inable one to take
better action shots. My question: do higher speed cards have any
advantage other than reducing the time it takes for the camera to
recover between shots?

Not as far as I've ever been able to discover. The biggest problem
digital cameras have with 'action' shots is 'shutter lag': the delay
between you squeezing the button and the camera actually taking the
picture. This has nothing to do with the sort of memory card installed
and is entirely down to the design of the camera; different models vary
widely and for action shots, short shutter lag is a feature you should be
looking for.

This site is useful for comparing different models
http://www.dpreview.com/.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

Naive question about memory cards.
 

"Whiskers" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
On 2006-02-21, R. Frist wrote:
Having given my trusty Pentax 43WR to my son to take to Iraq I am in
the market for a new point and shoot camera and memory card. Some
advertisements imply that the higher speed cards inable one to take
better action shots. My question: do higher speed cards have any
advantage other than reducing the time it takes for the camera to
recover between shots?

Not as far as I've ever been able to discover. The biggest problem
digital cameras have with 'action' shots is 'shutter lag': the delay
between you squeezing the button and the camera actually taking the
picture. This has nothing to do with the sort of memory card installed
and is entirely down to the design of the camera; different models vary
widely and for action shots, short shutter lag is a feature you should be
looking for.

Although what you say is true I often switch to burst mode when I know that
I'm going to take action shots to compensate for shutter lag. In that case
the speed of the link between camera and card does make a difference on how
much frames you can capture per second. The card may be the limiting factor
or the camera. I tend to buy high speed cards to be on the safe side - the
price difference doesn't seem to be worth bothering. Don't go for
microdrives - they need more power and are more fragile.

This site is useful for comparing different models
http://www.dpreview.com/.

I second that.

Kind regards

robert

Naive question about memory cards.
 

Thanks NB for the heads up about the 43WR service advisory. It seemed
like my camera worked flawlessly. The advisory does not describe what
problems to expect. Do CCDs either work or fail completely or can
something more subtle happen?

Naive question about memory cards.
 

On 2006-02-21, Robert Klemme wrote:

snip

Although what you say is true I often switch to burst mode when I know that
I'm going to take action shots to compensate for shutter lag.

snip

Burst Mode: how to just miss the Decisive Moment, rapidly ;))

If I go out with the intention of catching action shots, I'd use a manual
35mm camera, not digital. Even 35mm SLRs have too much shutter lag to
be really confident, although they are a lot better than most compact
digital cameras.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

Naive question about memory cards.
 

Whiskers wrote:
On 2006-02-21, Robert Klemme wrote:

snip

Although what you say is true I often switch to burst mode when I
know that I'm going to take action shots to compensate for shutter
lag.

snip

Burst Mode: how to just miss the Decisive Moment, rapidly ;))

It depends. There's a place for burst mode and there's a place for low
shutter lag cameras.

If I go out with the intention of catching action shots, I'd use a
manual 35mm camera, not digital. Even 35mm SLRs have too much
shutter lag to be really confident, although they are a lot better
than most compact digital cameras.

Sure.

robert