OK, now get ready….a little tech talk on a Monday morn:
[photopress:Lexar_Professional_UDMA_300x_CF.jpg,full,centered]

Faster is back (did it ever leave?) and all of the major manufacturers of of Compact Flash media cards are unleashing the fastest cards yet: 300x !

Wait, to really use it ,you need a new card reader with UDMA specification.

[photopress:Lexar_Professional_Dual_Slot_Card_Readerx.jpg,full,centered]

And your DSLR won’t be able to write faster. You’ll need a bigger buffer in the camera; which isn’t there yet. Either next gen or software upgrade, but count on it being a new feature.

So before you rush out to buy these new cards, please understand what they will and will not do for you.

The people that will benefit from the cards in the immediate are the sports and wedding photographers.
Why? because the download of the cards will be significantly faster.

If you are shooting fast ,raw continuous frames and are filling up your cards, even the 8gb cards, super fast, you have to download those cards on site or carry a bag full of cards. Chances are, an assistant is downloading and emptying the cards as you shoot. Hence the sports or wedding shooter advantage here.

BUT… if you are not shooting that way, and the turnaround on card usage is a bit more flex, this may not be what you need right now.
Sure, they will download faster. Good thing especially with the more robust file sizes.

Now of course the card media makers wouldn’t go whole hog into this venture if the major camera manufacturers weren’t on board. Not today, but the near future.

We predict end of year.

If you are happy with your card size and the 133x is just fine, you can save your money on the UDMA card reader ( it is backward compatible though) , and wait on the cards. Hey, maybe the 133x will be cheaper very soon.

Of course you’ll be able to really use that speed when you buy the next gen DSLR at the end of the year.

Cheers!
Damon Webster

This entry was posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 12:36 am and is filed under Photo News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.