Dig Cam Mem Sticks

[urOZm8]

Just passing on a tip that I received from a friends email the other day...

If you have got a digital - buy memory sticks or cards
128mb or smaller as it is quite difficult to get
memory larger than this burnt on to a CD... I had a
256mb memory stick and I had a shiteload of trouble
getting it burnt off... Apparently at 256mb and above
it's a different format or something and the majority
(ie about 5 out of 6) of the camera shops don't have
the technology to handle it...

one further tip on burning photo memory to cd's - try
and get it done at a computer shop - they charge as
little as half as what the camera shops charge...

[space virgin]

damn, I just bough my second 256mb compact flash card yesterday.

Oh well.

[pinion]

space - I wouldn't worry about. If you want to put your pictures on to cd your best bet is just do it at home. Take all the pictures from your card, put them on your hard drive and just burn them to disc. Easy, and the only cost is the blank cd.

Thats what I do with all my pictures and I've never had a problem.

Most blank cds are about 650-700MB so you should be fine with the size.

[space virgin]

^well, the thing is that I'm going to be on the road throughout europe, with my two 256's, and I'm going to want to empty out the cards when they get full onto a cd. I'm a notorious shutterbug-- I'm not telling how many rolls of film I shot on my last 2-week trip-- so the 512 megs isn't going to be (nearly) enough for 5 weeks.

Oh well, I'm sure it'll work out.

[hiro101]

I highly recommend that you do not rely on single large memory cards in your digital cameras. Not only will they be less compatible at camera shops, but, in my opinion, the bigger issue is that flash memory is not stable enough to hold my precious memories.

I work in this industry and have seen an unbelievable amount of Compact Flash cards get corrupt and people lose all of their pictures. I think a safer solution is to get a few smaller cards so "all your eggs are not in one basket." You should also burn CDs of your images as often as possible.. don't rely on hard drives either as they are also prone to crashes.

Just my two cents...hope I can save someone some angst!

Joe

[space virgin]

too late now, I can't afford to go out and buy more memory... do you think that if I dump the images off the card before it's full (like, say, half) that would be better? or am I just taking a big chance on getting screwed anyway? Also, would it help if I brought my card reader with me? thanks!

[hiro101]

sv,

I think filling a 256 mb card is safe enough... but when it's full, your best bet would be to dump to a CD if possible. What i'm really talking about is people who get 1 gigabyte cards and actually use them to store their pictures. I saw someone the other day with all the pics they ever took on one huge card.. that's what you have to avoid.

Joe

PS I hope I didn't scare you too much.. it's not like it happens all the time, but it does happen and I wanted everyone to be aware of it.

[space virgin]

oh, okay... thanks!!! Glad I got two 256's instead of one 512.