SanDisk CompactFlash (CF), which weighs a half-ounce and is the size of a matchbook, is an ultra-small, removable data storage system. CF is widely used in digital cameras, PDAs, HPCs, personal communicators, medical monitors and audio recorders because it expands the functionality of those products and enables them to be smaller and lighter.
CompactFlash, which weighs a half ounce and is the size of a matchbook, is an ultrasmall, removable data storage system that is ideal for use with digital cameras and handheld PCs.
1 Sandisks & keeping the data
Though this card, 32 megs is minute, you still may only need that. I picked this up (about 4 1/2 years ago), when it was state of the art & about sixty bucks or so. I still have both cards! Well over 4,000 photos & bazillions of files!! Never a read or write error! I've never lost anything with it. Unlike the Lexar!
If you're looking into compact flash cards, go with who started it. I have a 128mb sandisk, & am now looking into their 2 gig Ultra card, for my new camera. Because I want speed, & need the space for 8MP photos.
The write/capture function is slow, it's not meant for speed. But for swapping & transferring it's faster than from cd (with the right reader/writer)!
SD cards & micro drive are inching in, but Sandisk keeps imporoving the CF (they also make SD cards).
There are cheaper & less expensive cards out there, but how important is your data/photo? You can't always retrieve your files, with the flash memory programs. I know. I used three of them on my Lexar, & NEVER got all of the images. But that just may be the cards I have, who knows? There isn't any quality control any longer, who cares? Sandisk is the most accurate.
2 SanDisk and Viking are the top names in CompactFlash Cards
I didn't realize that there are large differences between brands of CompactFlash cards until I purchased (thinking that I was saving money) an inferior, "no name" brand. The generic card literally fell apart on me.
After making that mistake, I researched through the tech boards and unequivically, the SanDisk and the Viking disks received the best reviews and the highest ratings.
I chose the SanDisk brand because its price was better than the Viking's without foregoing the quality as I had done previously.
This is a great buy at the current, discounted price. Take advantage of it while the sale price is still available!
3 Works with everything
The SanDisk card works perfectly with both my digital camera and Visor Prism's MemPlug card. The MemPlug module, by PiTech, allows a Handspring Visor to use a CompactFlash (or SmartMedia) card as if it were an extension of the hand held's own RAM. I made the mistake of initially purchasing a CompUSA CompactFlash card but had to return it when it proved to be incompatible. The SanDisk is a winner.
4 It gets the job done
...And it does it well. For the price, the 32mb is the best value. Unless you plan on taking hundreds of High Res, Large format pictures, don't waste money on a larger card. I use this card with a Canon S100 and I'm very happy with the results. I've never had to worry about running out of space when shooting low res(640x480) almost 300 pics, and in Hi Res Mode (overkill) it can still handle more than 30. I've taken and deleted hundreds of pictures with no problems.
5 Perfect Weekend Capacity
This has the perfect memory capacity for a weekend away. It stores 100 pictures! I enjoy being able to have only 1 disk for a "weekends" worth of pictures. I don't have to change the disk, therefore I won't lose any disks when I travel. It is very convenient. This is an excellent product.
6 Nice product but one picture less
I had this product for my Kodak DC3400. It works fine and I do not regret this purchase. But it is funny that , this card can only store 51 pictures , compared with 52 pics of the 32M Kodak card bought with the camera, at the same quality and resolution. As far as I know, all kodak cards are made by Sandisk :-)
7 Mad and Madder
I purchased an Olympus D-460 zoom camera and a Flash Path by SanDisk last month. Camera takes great pictures but computer does not reconize the flash path. I've install all of the software that I received with both camera and Flash Path and don't know what to do next. I live 75 miles from the nearest computer help I can get, am house bound due to my health and wish to be able to take and do my own photos as part of keeping my self busy and interested in life. I'm out a lot of money and not to pleased with the whole affair. Carrol
8 Works, inexpensive, what else can you ask
When I purchased my digital camera (Kodak DC280) I included one of these for extra space. The card works properly and was at a good price. What else can you ask for?
Not much, unless you find that you sometimes take lots of photos. I guess that includes me. In which case you'll wish that you purchased a larger card. I bought the Viking 128mb card, and now feel completely prepared with the combined cards providing enourmous storage. Unless you are going to be away for an extended period, I can't imagine needing more space.
The bottom line is that this card works, but you need to really consider what your storage requirements will be so you can select the right size.
9 Good Product but . . .
I have a few friends that have purchased this product and it works fine. If however the price is too high or it is out of stock I would recommend the Viking CF32M (it is currently a little less expensive).
If you look at all of the reviews of both products you will see that they are very comparable in regards to quality and reliability (in fact there is one review that states the Viking card is actually faster).
Anyway, this is a good product when the price is right and it is in stock.
10 Memory Cards for All Uses
The most common application for this type of memory card is a digital camera, but these can also be used with a number of electronic devices, including the HP Jordana, and even your laptop computer with a PC Card adapter. You can store any type of data on the cartridge, and they can be quickly changed between devices. I have never had a problem with any of my SanDisk Compact Flash Cards.
11 Unlimited amount of uses.....
Excellent product for the price. I use this flashcard for my Cassiopeia E-105, it really helps me save valuable memory space for my handheld. It has an unlimited amount of uses allowing the user to download mp3's, programs & games. Very easy to use (drag & drop) files right into the card, create a shortcut on your handheld & thats all there is to it. Extremely convenient, compact & very reliable. Don't know how I got along without one. Highly recommend!!!
12 Horrible! Don't buy!
Some people may think 'Ahh... This is a 12 year old kid!Whatdoes he know? He's probably out to write a bad review!'. Well, that happens not to be true. I bought this thinking I could use this for my songs on my Cassiopeia E-115. I got it, added songs to it. But within the week something happend to the card. I had taken it out one night to put in my 56K Modem for AOL use. When I put it in, in the morning, all the songs where gone and it wasn't able to find the songs are add any more to it...
13 **Go Crazy**
At 1024 x 768 resolution, this memory card holds 200-390 images on my Polaroid PDC-700 camera (that's like 8-16 rolls of film). The price and capacity are just right for weekend trips or special events. **Go crazy** and take pictures of anything and everything that catches your eye!
I took 89 pictures in 5 hours at my company's "Relay for Life" event on Friday, and really enjoyed not having to "budget" my photos or worry about running out of film. The image quality was excellent, and downloading was quick & easy with a digital film reader.
I'm planning a 2-week trip to Spain this fall, and am considering an additional 32MB SanDisk memory card just in case I get **Too Crazy**. Does anyone know if they make a storage case for spare memory cards?
14 Good Size, Good Price
When selecting a memory size, 32MB is a very useful and cost effectivechoice. With over 50 high quality pictures, only one card is required in most situations. At [this price] it is quite affordable and, if lost, will not be a heavy financial burden. So, don't go less than 32MB or more than $100 unless you are cheap (and you bought a digital camera?) or a professional (go for 192MB while you at it then).
15 Sandisk 32MB CFC
I purchased the Sandisk 32MB Flash memory card over the weekend and I have to say I would have been lost without it. I already had the 8MB that came with my Nikon CP-950. I thought it over wheather to buy an 8, 16 or 32 and since 8 quicky was filled I thought twice the amount wouldn't even be enough. I was right, I had been at the park on a beautiful day with the 32mb card; it was enough to keep me busy for 4 hours! I collected about 86 photos. The quality was nice also. I would buy this size card from Sandisk again. For serious picture takers, this is a wise buy.
16 SanDisk SDCFB-32-455 32MB Compact Flash Card
This card can store up to 800 pics max in a digita camera if out in low resoultion, and around 160 in high resolution, its really good, and very small and lite.
17 Super storage at the right price!
I have a 32 MB Sandisk Compact Flash card for my Nikon Coolpix 950, a 2-megapixel digital cam. This card will allow you to record about 50 pictures at the standard (640x480) resolution, so if you find you're not a 'power user' of your camera, it should be plenty - and the dollars-to-megabyte ratio is right!
However, if you regularly shoot at higher resolutions such as 1600x1200 (i.e. 8" x 10" photo quality), you won't be able to fit 20 photos on this card. In that event, you might want to think about going for their 96MB card (also available from Amazon!)
With this size card you might also want to think about going for Sandisk's inexpensive USB card reader - it's up to 50x as fast and a lot less hassle than hooking the camera up to the computer!
18 A necessity for digital camera users!
Unless you carry a notebook computer to constantly dump your digital camera images to, you will likely have noticed that the memory card that came with your digital camera fills up rather quickly, especially at higher resolutions. Why camera companies are unwilling to shell out the extra few dollars for larger capacity cards to include with their products is a mystery of marketing, but the fact that the dinky 4, 8 and 16 MB cards fill up with photos of family and adventures rather quickly. That's why this little card is such a gem.
32MB is a good compromise in the size/cost ratio, although the 48MB and 64MB cards are also a good deal. The Sandisk brand is a relative unknown to the consumer -- at least under that name. Sandisk supposedly makes memory cards and sells them directly to the camera manufacturers, so chances are the card that came with your camera is made by them. As far as reliability goes, the memory works just as well and holds just as much as better known name brands which cost tens of dollars more.
All in all, the Sandisk memory is a good product at a good price, and it will make your digital picture taking so much more enjoyable as you forget about having to pace yourself concerning the amount of photos you take!
19 a good compromise between price and memory size
Commend added in December 2002: this review was written when 2 megapixel cameras were top of the line, and a 32 MB card costed over a hundred dollars. Now, the prices have dropped so much that the same review would be more applicable to a 128 or 256 MB card. - A.I.
Nobody would argue that the more memory you have in your digital camera, the better. The question is what the reasonable compromise between the price of a memory card and its size is, and how to predict how much memory you actually need before you paid for it. I looked up some literature on the image compression techniques, and made some experiments with printing out pictures with different resolution and different compression ratios, and came to the following conclusions.
Most cameras offer a choice between several picture resolutions and several image compression modes. Low resolution is good for on-screen viewing, while high resolution is better suited for printouts. It is not uncommon for digital photographers to take pictures at a resolution lower than the maximum allowed by their camera, although there seems to be no point of buying an expensive high-resolution camera to take low-resolution pictures. A probable reason for that is that their camera was shipped with a very small memory card and did not upgrade it yet. Unfortunately, high resolution images require lots of storage space: an uncompressed image taken by a 3 megapixel camera can be as large as 10 MB. JPEG compression, which is based on an algorithm specifically developed for image compressing helps to store large pictures in relatively small files. Specifically, JPEG compression algorithm divides an image into squares 8*8 pixels each, performes two-dimensional discrete cosine trasform of each of these squares, and compresses their frequency spectra by removing the high-frequency components or by decreasing their accuracy through a "quantization" procedure. While this review is not appropriate for a discussion of technical details of the JPEG algorithm, it is worth saying that JPEG analyzes each small "brick" of the image individually and adapts the level of smoothing/compressing to the image to be compressed. In fact, you determine not the size of the compressed image, but the level of its quality: the final size of the compressed file varies depending on each particular image. This "adaptive" nature of JPEG makes it very efficient: it takes advantage of the smoothness of monotonically colored parts of the image by achieving great compression ratios in those areas without significant losses in quality, and it is also good at rendering sharp contrasts in the image. Since JPEG standard was optimized to take into account the specifics of our perception of visual information (like mp3 compression of music files takes advantage of the way how we hear music), JPEG compressed pictures are almost undistinguishable from the originals up to the compression ratios of 1:8 to 1:12.
Therefore, a combination of highest possible resolution of your camera with the "fine" (or "best") compression mode is a good choice for a digital photographer. If this combination of resolution and compression is used, a 32 MB memory card would be sufficient for about 36 pictures taken by a 3 megapixel camera, or for about 48 pictures taken by a 2 megapixel camera. This is equivalent to one or two rolls of film, which is not a lot, but usually suffices for a day of occasional shooting. Hence, it seems to me that a 32 MB memory card is a good buy for the most of us.
Just the last comment: note that there are two types of memory, flash and SmartMedia. Check you camera manual which one you need. SmartMedia memory cards are slimmer, if I am not mistaken.
