Question on Memory cards

Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Posts: 3

I use the Olympus E500 which came with a 512mb card. I have found this has not been big enough and am therefore looking for a new, bigger card. I have found a 2GB card online at what looks like a good price but before i order one, i wanted to check that it is the correct card and it will work well with my camera. If anyone could check out the link for me and advise me, i would really appreciate it. The company is called 7day shop. Many thanks in advance

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=101212

Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 268

Yes, that is not only the correct card, but it is a pretty good card as well. What you will notice between that card and cheaper cards is that it will spend less time writng the file to the card which means you can take pictures faster. If you are using the USB cable to connect the camera to your computer you wont notice a difference because the E-500 is only USB 1.1. However, if you use a USB 2.0 CF card reader (highly recommended) then you will notice that this card will copy the files to your computer much faster than a cheaper card.

I carry a variety myself. If I am shooting something like a wedding or event and I need to take a lot of pictuires fast, then I will use the faster cards. If I am doing landscapes or product shots, then I have a stash of 2gb cards I bought for $29 each but they are much slower to copy the files over.

Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Posts: 3

Kerry, thank you for your kind reply. It is appreciated. Before i order the card, i hope it is ok to ask one more question. Is there any benefit to using a 1GB card over a 2GB card, apart from less storage or would both the 1GB and 2GB perform the same? I guess my point is, would i be better off with two 1GB cards or just the one 2GB card?

Neil.

Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 268

There are two trains of thought on this issue. If both cards are the same speed, then they will perform the same, so its not a performance issue. The real issue is the "all your eggs in one basket issue". I do mostly product photography and landscapes, architecture, things like that. If I had an entire photoshoot on one card and the card got corrupt before I could download the images, no big deal, go do a reshoot.

If I am shooting a wedding, then I will use smaller cards but more of them so that if a card becomes corrupt, then I am only loosing a small subset of images.

Corrupt cards are rare, in 5 years of shooting digital I have had two CF cards just die on me and the last one was three years ago. Getting a single corrupt file happens more often and is usually user error such as putting a card in/pulling out when the camera is turned on, taking pictures on a very low battery, or some other stupid move like that.

The other issue is cost. the larger the card, the more expensive it is. It is sometimes much cheaper to buy 2 1gb cards than it is to buy 1 2gb card. Personally, I use mostly 2gb cards because I felt it was a good tradeoff between cost and convenience (number of images per card).

Hope this helps.

Joined: 18 Jun 2006 Posts: 191

I have 3 extreme IV 4 gig cards on the way...plus my 2 1 gig 80x cards. Im shooting raw+JPEG more now so i need speed and space....

Joined: 09 Oct 2006 Posts: 52

nea27 wrote:

I use the Olympus E500 which came with a 512mb card. I have found this has not been big enough and am therefore looking for a new, bigger card. I have found a 2GB card online at what looks like a good price but before i order one, i wanted to check that it is the correct card and it will work well with my camera. If anyone could check out the link for me and advise me, i would really appreciate it. The company is called 7day shop. Many thanks in advance

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=101212

Hi nea27!
This card fits to your camera and the price is realy good!

Joined: 16 Aug 2004 Posts: 158 Location: west Texas

Many years ago when people used a thing called film, you were limited to the number of exposures per roll. We did wedding photography and only used 120 roll film (10 exp.). If we lost a roll, regardless of reason, we only lost 10 shots.

So out of habit, I prefer 128MB cards and get about 30 images/card. It can be a pain in the neck but my concern is "all the eggs in one basket".

I covered a Christmas event a couple of years ago and had one card go bad in the camera. I lost about 20 shots.

If I had been using a 1GB card I would have lost a lot more.

More than one card, in my opinion, is just good insurance.

Joined: 18 Jun 2006 Posts: 191

rule of thumb for cards are buy either sandisk, lexar or an xd....any other brands are looking for trouble....