Digital Home Thoughts: Extreme CompactFlash: A Digital Photographer's Best Friend?

"You're likely to find CompactFlash (CF) cards hard at work everywhere today for digital photographers, both professionals and hobbyists alike. Anyone employing the use of a digital camera is likely to at least have seen a CF card, while those of us familiar with its use are likely also familiar with how quickly they can fill up - regardless of capacity. Let's take a look at a couple products intended to make all data transfers quicker and easier. The Extreme IV reader can be purchased in a bundle with a 2 GB Extreme IV CF card. The package also includes a 30-day trial of Adobe Photoshop CS2, and two Firewire cables meeting the IEEE 1394a and 1394b standards. This reader's connection was a little temperamental, often requiring a system restart after being connected. Other than that it worked smoothly with no problems or complications. The bundle can be found for approximately $199.95. Larger capacity CF Cards are widely available, but expect to pay significantly more for the extra space."



Wow, those graphs on page 2 are really eye-opening. I didn't realize the huge difference in speed with an extreme CF card. However, what surprised me even more is that the cards are actually quite affordable. I have a 1GB CF card for my 10D and I do not fill it up that easily when shooting jpgs. But if I switch to RAW files, well, I can only shoot about 100 or so photos. And then the transfer time is so incredibly long. I can see this solution being extremely useful.