Memory Cards
 

A friend of mine told me that he had heard from someone at Lexar that in
2-3 years they would no longer be making CF memory Cards, only
manufacturing SDHC and micro SD cards. I realize that this is third
party hearsay, but has anyone else heard that 'hearsay?' And what about
other manufacturers?

Memory Cards
 

"Alan Lichtenstein" wrote in message
...
A friend of mine told me that he had heard from someone at Lexar that in
2-3 years they would no longer be making CF memory Cards, only
manufacturing SDHC and micro SD cards. I realize that this is third party
hearsay, but has anyone else heard that 'hearsay?' And what about other
manufacturers?

CF cards are used in almost all DSLRs. So CF cards will be around for a
long time. I for one wouldn't cry if Lexar stopped making any memory cards.
Their problem may be a shrinking market share.

Ron

Memory Cards
 

Ron wrote:

"Alan Lichtenstein" wrote in message
...

A friend of mine told me that he had heard from someone at Lexar that
in 2-3 years they would no longer be making CF memory Cards, only
manufacturing SDHC and micro SD cards. I realize that this is third
party hearsay, but has anyone else heard that 'hearsay?' And what
about other manufacturers?


CF cards are used in almost all DSLRs. So CF cards will be around for a
long time. I for one wouldn't cry if Lexar stopped making any memory
cards. Their problem may be a shrinking market share.

I stopped by my local camera shop today after I posted the initial post.
I mentioned what I had heard and the person I usually deal with said
that he had heard pretty much the same. I asked him about other
manufacturers and he said that he heard nothing about their plans. I
use San Disk anyway, and that initially relieved me, however, he added
that with reduced competition, he anticipated the CF cards to become
more expensive.

I may be wrong, but when comparing similar manufacturer's CF cards to
their SDHC cards, the CF cards seem to have higher write speeds than the
comparable SDHC cards. I agree that most dSLR's use CF cards, however,
many of them have two slots and can take either. Given the differences
in write speeds, it does appear to me that Lexar's decision to get out
of the CF business is somewhat strange, as dSLR users would want the
faster write speeds. Someone had said that the new Nikon 300 has a
single slot. Not using a Nikon, I wouldn't know anything about that
claim either. But I would find it odd.

Memory Cards
 

Rich wrote:

On Nov 7, 8:35 am, Alan Lichtenstein wrote:

A friend of mine told me that he had heard from someone at Lexar that in
2-3 years they would no longer be making CF memory Cards, only
manufacturing SDHC and micro SD cards. I realize that this is third
party hearsay, but has anyone else heard that 'hearsay?' And what about
other manufacturers?


They must cost more than SD cards to make, purely from a resource use
standpoint. No wonder they want to do away with them.

Understandable, but just as a curiosity, I compared the write speeds of
a manufacturer's CF and SDHC cards of the same level, and it appeared
that the CF card has a much faster write speed. I saw that in the
latest B & H catalog. Admittedly, it could be a misprint, but it was
repeated, so I'm not sure. I'll have to go and actually see both cards.

Also, should that be the case, it would appear that most users of dSLR's
would want the faster write speed, making the decision to stop producing
the CF cards 'curious' at best.

Memory Cards
 

On 2010-11-07 12:39:15 -0800, Alan Lichtenstein said:

Ron wrote:

"Alan Lichtenstein" wrote in message
...

A friend of mine told me that he had heard from someone at Lexar that
in 2-3 years they would no longer be making CF memory Cards, only
manufacturing SDHC and micro SD cards. I realize that this is third
party hearsay, but has anyone else heard that 'hearsay?' And what about
other manufacturers?


CF cards are used in almost all DSLRs. So CF cards will be around for
a long time. I for one wouldn't cry if Lexar stopped making any memory
cards. Their problem may be a shrinking market share.

I stopped by my local camera shop today after I posted the initial
post. I mentioned what I had heard and the person I usually deal with
said that he had heard pretty much the same. I asked him about other
manufacturers and he said that he heard nothing about their plans. I
use San Disk anyway, and that initially relieved me, however, he added
that with reduced competition, he anticipated the CF cards to become
more expensive.

I would guess the announcement of the demise of the CF card is
premature. Whatever Lexar has decided might be a business decision.
That said there are other sources such as Delkin, Hoodman, Kingston,
Sandisk, etc. but there are changes to the line up eliminating the
slower, less expensive, consumer level CF cards. Therefore the CF cards
offered will be higher speed, and higher priced.

Personally I use Sandisk 60MB/s Extreme UDMA CF, and I have quite a
collection of 30MB/s Sandisk Extreme III CF & SDHC cards, though
through their repositioning they no longer produce the 30MB/s Extreme
III CF, and they have renamed the Extreme III SD to Extreme.
Now they have the 60MB/s Extreme UDMA CF, & the 90MB/s Extreme Pro UDMA
CF. That seems to follow the trend of CF only being used in Pro, or
Pro-sumer level DSLR's.
For the consumer market, they have Ultra SDXC which is 15MB/s, and the
Extreme SDHC @ 30MB/s. They do not have an SD card which comes near the
write/read speed of the UDMA CF cards.


I may be wrong, but when comparing similar manufacturer's CF cards to
their SDHC cards, the CF cards seem to have higher write speeds than
the comparable SDHC cards. I agree that most dSLR's use CF cards,
however, many of them have two slots and can take either. Given the
differences in write speeds, it does appear to me that Lexar's decision
to get out of the CF business is somewhat strange, as dSLR users would
want the faster write speeds. Someone had said that the new Nikon 300
has a single slot. Not using a Nikon, I wouldn't know anything about
that claim either. But I would find it odd.

The Nikon D300 had a single CF slot. The newer D300s has CF, and SD
slots. The secondary slot can be menu set as a parallel back-up, an
overflow for when the primary memory has filled, splitting RAW and JPEG
files onto different cards, or directing video files onto a different
memory card to your still files. It is a useful feature.


--
Regards,

Savageduck

Memory Cards
 

On 11/7/2010 3:42 PM, Alan Lichtenstein wrote:
Rich wrote:

On Nov 7, 8:35 am, Alan Lichtenstein wrote:

A friend of mine told me that he had heard from someone at Lexar that in
2-3 years they would no longer be making CF memory Cards, only
manufacturing SDHC and micro SD cards. I realize that this is third
party hearsay, but has anyone else heard that 'hearsay?' And what about
other manufacturers?


They must cost more than SD cards to make, purely from a resource use
standpoint. No wonder they want to do away with them.

Understandable, but just as a curiosity, I compared the write speeds of
a manufacturer's CF and SDHC cards of the same level, and it appeared
that the CF card has a much faster write speed. I saw that in the latest
B & H catalog. Admittedly, it could be a misprint, but it was repeated,
so I'm not sure. I'll have to go and actually see both cards.

Also, should that be the case, it would appear that most users of dSLR's
would want the faster write speed, making the decision to stop producing
the CF cards 'curious' at best.

We all know that Rich is an accomplished cost analyst and a pillar of
veracity.

--
Peter

Memory Cards
 

"Alan Lichtenstein" wrote in message
...
Ron wrote:

"Alan Lichtenstein" wrote in message
...

A friend of mine told me that he had heard from someone at Lexar that in
2-3 years they would no longer be making CF memory Cards, only
manufacturing SDHC and micro SD cards. I realize that this is third
party hearsay, but has anyone else heard that 'hearsay?' And what about
other manufacturers?


CF cards are used in almost all DSLRs. So CF cards will be around for a
long time. I for one wouldn't cry if Lexar stopped making any memory
cards. Their problem may be a shrinking market share.

I stopped by my local camera shop today after I posted the initial post. I
mentioned what I had heard and the person I usually deal with said that he
had heard pretty much the same. I asked him about other manufacturers and
he said that he heard nothing about their plans. I use San Disk anyway,
and that initially relieved me, however, he added that with reduced
competition, he anticipated the CF cards to become more expensive.

I may be wrong, but when comparing similar manufacturer's CF cards to
their SDHC cards, the CF cards seem to have higher write speeds than the
comparable SDHC cards. I agree that most dSLR's use CF cards, however,
many of them have two slots and can take either. Given the differences in
write speeds, it does appear to me that Lexar's decision to get out of the
CF business is somewhat strange, as dSLR users would want the faster write
speeds. Someone had said that the new Nikon 300 has a single slot. Not
using a Nikon, I wouldn't know anything about that claim either. But I
would find it odd.

I have three Canon DSLRs and they all have a single card slot and it is CF.
As far as price goes, they are all cheap to those of us that have been using
them for a while. Years ago a 340 MB microdrive type II CF card was over a
hundred bucks. The CF cards with the largest capacity and fast write/read
speeds will always have a high price until the newer version comes out.
Like all electronics, the bigger better widget always costs more!

Ron

Memory Cards
 

On 2010-11-07 12:42:14 -0800, Alan Lichtenstein said:

Rich wrote:

On Nov 7, 8:35 am, Alan Lichtenstein wrote:

A friend of mine told me that he had heard from someone at Lexar that in
2-3 years they would no longer be making CF memory Cards, only
manufacturing SDHC and micro SD cards. I realize that this is third
party hearsay, but has anyone else heard that 'hearsay?' And what about
other manufacturers?


They must cost more than SD cards to make, purely from a resource use
standpoint. No wonder they want to do away with them.

Understandable, but just as a curiosity, I compared the write speeds of
a manufacturer's CF and SDHC cards of the same level, and it appeared
that the CF card has a much faster write speed. I saw that in the
latest B & H catalog. Admittedly, it could be a misprint, but it was
repeated, so I'm not sure. I'll have to go and actually see both cards.

Also, should that be the case, it would appear that most users of
dSLR's would want the faster write speed, making the decision to stop
producing the CF cards 'curious' at best.

The older, slower CF cards are being done away with.
That leaves the faster, pricier CF cards. So If you can find some of
those older slower, less expensive cards running at the same speeds as
the fastest SD cards, and you can live with that, buy them up.

CF cards are going to cost more because they are not making the slower
cards any more, that market need is being filled with SD cards the
fastest being 30MB/s.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

Memory Cards
 

On 2010-11-07 21:05:47 -0800, Peabody said:

Savageduck says...

The older, slower CF cards are being done away with.
That leaves the faster, pricier CF cards. So If you can
find some of those older slower, less expensive cards
running at the same speeds as the fastest SD cards, and
you can live with that, buy them up.

CF cards are going to cost more because they are not
making the slower cards any more, that market need is
being filled with SD cards the fastest being 30MB/s.

Well, maybe someone will come up with a superfast version of
the current SD-to-CF adapter so SD cards can be used for at
least the medium speed requirements at low cost. But SD is
a serial device while CF is parallel, and then there's the
extra controller used in the adapter process. So the speed
you would get from even the fastest adapter might not be so
great.

It's not clear to me that video requires the fastest write
speed, since the video is compressed. My guess is the
stream of continuous shooting in RAW would present the most
rigorous requirement, particularly for those big 20+mp
cameras.

I'm using an adapter in my 350D now, and it works fine, but
of course a 350D isn't much of a speed challenge. :-)

It is interesting that SanDisk touts its 64GB 15MB/s Ultra SDXC card
for HD video, and the 30MB/s Extreme SDHC for DSLR's.

I also need to correct an earler post I made. It appears SanDisk is
still producing its slower CF cards, The 30MB/s Extreme III, and the
15MB/s Ultra II.
…and prices for those seem reasonable.

Amazon has some great deals on SanDisk CF cards, the best being this
one for 16GB 60MB/s Extreme CF UDMA @ $91.60.
http://thurly.net/09tp
If you want something slower there are even better prices.

I like the idea of using en Eye-Fi SD card in the SD slot of my D300s.
I should give that a test.
--
Regards,

Savageduck

Memory Cards
 

Peabody wrote:
Well, maybe someone will come up with a superfast version of
the current SD-to-CF adapter so SD cards can be used for at
least the medium speed requirements at low cost. But SD is
a serial device while CF is parallel, and then there's the
extra controller used in the adapter process. So the speed
you would get from even the fastest adapter might not be so
great.


Just remember that we switched from parallel (P-)ATA to serial
SATA. Serial connections have speed advantages over parallel ones.
The controller will be the limiter in the adapter.

It's not clear to me that video requires the fastest write
speed, since the video is compressed. My guess is the
stream of continuous shooting in RAW would present the most
rigorous requirement, particularly for those big 20+mp
cameras.

You can always use a buffer for shooting in RAW, once it's full
you just have to wait a bit. Try that with video ...

-Wolfgang