CF with Canon newbie questions

Hi,

Just a couple of basic newbie questions considering CF cards (with a
Canon Ixus/Powershot 500).

There are CF's of 1gb and 2gb nowadays.
I think 1gb is safer because if something happens you only loose half
of your pictures. Is this correct thinking or am I missing something?

You have normal speed CF's and also high speed CF's. Can you "feel"
the difference with a Ixus 500 ?

What is the chance of loosing pictures with CF's, because here and
there, I read about cards which are giving errors?! Let me put it
this way: would you guys go on a long vacation (one month for
example) and carry 2 or 3 1gb cards without a laptop or the intention
to download the pictures from the CF card?

Thanks in advance,
Kris

Kris wrote:
Hi,

Just a couple of basic newbie questions considering CF cards (with a
Canon Ixus/Powershot 500).

There are CF's of 1gb and 2gb nowadays.
I think 1gb is safer because if something happens you only loose half
of your pictures. Is this correct thinking or am I missing something?

half...yes in case you have pics on more than one card. But you still loose
ALL pics on that card.


You have normal speed CF's and also high speed CF's. Can you "feel"
the difference with a Ixus 500 ?


fast ones are good for movie mode, then if you want to shoot a series of
shots etc.


What is the chance of loosing pictures with CF's, because here and
there, I read about cards which are giving errors?! Let me put it
this way: would you guys go on a long vacation (one month for
example) and carry 2 or 3 1gb cards without a laptop or the intention
to download the pictures from the CF card?

Hm...what is the chance of having a laptop and it's HDD dies? Same as chance
of CF card dies. But, in general, more expensive ones are more reliable -
like newest Sandisk extreme III have lifetime guarantee.
But, sure it's better to have 2 or 3 1G cards than one bigger, at least you
loose half pics, not all...
But ,on the other hand, buying more 1G cards would be same money than if you
buy some portable HDD or CD burner (specially designed for this purpose -
built in card reader, runs on batteries) for this purpose...so you have one
512M card and then you save pics on 2 CDR's...


Thanks in advance,
Kris

(Kris) wrote in
om:

Hi,

Just a couple of basic newbie questions considering CF cards (with a
Canon Ixus/Powershot 500).

There are CF's of 1gb and 2gb nowadays.

The first question you need to ask: can the IXUS actually use cards that
large?

I think 1gb is safer because if something happens you only loose half
of your pictures. Is this correct thinking or am I missing something?

Then again, if you mislay one of your cards, you lose half your pictures,
and then get to buy another card.

Since the IXUS shoots only JPEGS, a 2GB card (if it can use it) will take
quite a lot of shooting to fill - it probably never need leave the camera.

You have normal speed CF's and also high speed CF's. Can you "feel"
the difference with a Ixus 500 ?

No. So far, the difference on any pont and shoot is minimal, much less the
medium-lower end.

What is the chance of loosing pictures with CF's,

From several tens of thousands of images, I had one with an encoding error.
CF card routinely survive accidents that destroy the cameras they are in.

snip

Hi,

My Elph (Ixus) S500 does work nicely with a 1 GB Sandisk Extreme CF card. Using
minimal JPEG compression and finest detail, this card holds 396 pictures, and
is fine for trips. For everyday use, I keep a 512 MB card in the camera, which
holds 198 pictures. It is easy for me to use a $12.00 USB card reader to copy
pix from my CF card to my hard drive, and then burn them onto a CD-R for
backup. I have just ordered some Belkin Gold CD-R blanks, which are supposedly
stable for 100 years; although at age 76, I'll not find out if they do last
that long.

From my reading and discussions with knowledgeable people, major brands of CF
cards hardly ever go bad, certainly less often than hard drives. You could
back up your pix to your PC's hard drive or an external hard drive, but CD-R
backup seems to be much cheaper and more reliable.


Good luck,

Morton


Eric Gill wrote:

(Kris) wrote in
om:

Hi,

Just a couple of basic newbie questions considering CF cards (with a
Canon Ixus/Powershot 500).

There are CF's of 1gb and 2gb nowadays.

The first question you need to ask: can the IXUS actually use cards that
large?

I think 1gb is safer because if something happens you only loose half
of your pictures. Is this correct thinking or am I missing something?

Then again, if you mislay one of your cards, you lose half your pictures,
and then get to buy another card.

Since the IXUS shoots only JPEGS, a 2GB card (if it can use it) will take
quite a lot of shooting to fill - it probably never need leave the camera.

You have normal speed CF's and also high speed CF's. Can you "feel"
the difference with a Ixus 500 ?

No. So far, the difference on any pont and shoot is minimal, much less the
medium-lower end.

What is the chance of loosing pictures with CF's,

From several tens of thousands of images, I had one with an encoding error.
CF card routinely survive accidents that destroy the cameras they are in.

snip