Removable memory cards (SD, xD, Compact Flash, Memory Stick)

[Delvo]

I just read an article about a camera with two or more kinds of slot in it, in which the author says that the camera writes an image to the SD card five times as fast as it writes one to the xD card. I had long wondered why xD cards are more expensive than SD cards are, and this made me wonder even more, because for the more expensive card to be the slower one is an odd combination. Does it have any advantages to balance out the speed and price issues?

This also reminded me that I had also wondered for quite a while about Compact Flash. It's bigger than the others, which would be bad for its use in really small devices, but it's quite common in some larger ones such as professional cameras. Does it have any particular advantages to make manufacturers want to build for it instead of for one of the smaller ones? Is it faster? Is it less vulnerable to water, dirt, or physical damage? Can it hold more data?

[HenrikOlsen]

I had long wondered why xD cards are more expensive than SD cards are, and this made me wonder even more, because for the more expensive card to be the slower one is an odd combination.
SD cards are produced in massive quantities which is what causes the low price, it's not caused by a difference in capabilities

[Moose]

This also reminded me that I had also wondered for quite a while about Compact Flash. It's bigger than the others, which would be bad for its use in really small devices, but it's quite common in some larger ones such as professional cameras. Does it have any particular advantages to make manufacturers want to build for it instead of for one of the smaller ones? Is it faster? Is it less vulnerable to water, dirt, or physical damage? Can it hold more data?

No really significant advantages of the CompactFlash over SD, except for a rather notorious reputation for survivability. SD appears to be quicker, though, and more newbie friendly. It seems to be a bit less survivable, too, as my father recently discovered having salvaged a camera (and card) ((not his own)) from the bottom of a river. Oh, the card still read, barely, but the error-correction was working overtime to make that happen.

[peteshimmon]

I obtained my first digital camera a year
ago. It came with a clear perspex waterproof
case. For when you are surfing, that is waves,
ocean, beach type of surfing. Thats what the
packing box picture suggested anyway. But it
made the thing a decent size for my clumsy
hands to operate! We are not all taken with
smallness. Gets through cheap cells too damn
quick though.

[mugaliens]

For short underwater jaunts, I've simply stuffed my PowerShot DE into a zip-lock bag.

[Delvo]

No really significant advantages of the CompactFlash over SD, except for a rather notorious reputation for survivability. SD appears to be quicker, though, and more newbie friendly. It seems to be a bit less survivable, too...What makes a card "newbie friendly"? Does using some require the user to do something that (s)he doesn't need to do when using others?

Someone told me today that the company that invented xD did so after SD was already out, and was trying to replace SD in the market. How did they think they were going to do that if the performance is slower and the price is higher? At least with Compact Flash, I noticed that the highest capacities are higher than the highest SD/xD capacities...

For short underwater jaunts, I've simply stuffed my PowerShot DE into a zip-lock bag.I wrap my camera in the plastic wrap that was invented for food, for walks in the rain or in a forest when the leaves are wet. But for actual submergence, I wouldn't trust anything but a hard shell or a camera that was already waterproof itself. (And I don't get something about those: why no optical zoom? I know that the usual implementations, with the front of the lens assembly sliding in and out like telescope parts, create more openings in the case's surface, and that's not good for waterproofing, but why don't they at least put a few alternative lenses inside the thing to switch back and forth in front of the sensor internally? It would give only preset focal lengths, not the full spectrum between them, but it would be more than nothing. Even some cheap kid-toy cameras and 35mm "disposable" cameras manage to muster at least one alternative internal lens to give us that rudimentary zoom feature...)

[Van Rijn]

This also reminded me that I had also wondered for quite a while about Compact Flash. It's bigger than the others, which would be bad for its use in really small devices, but it's quite common in some larger ones such as professional cameras. Does it have any particular advantages to make manufacturers want to build for it instead of for one of the smaller ones? Is it faster? Is it less vulnerable to water, dirt, or physical damage? Can it hold more data?

One technical difference with CF versus SD is that CF looks like an ATA hard drive to the computer/PDA/camera. SD relies on the computer to directly access the memory. So, one issue is that older devices often do well with high capacity CF cards, because they already know how to handle a hard drive of that capacity, but won't be able to deal with SDHC cards, because they would need an upgraded SDHC interface.

[Moose]

What makes a card "newbie friendly"? Does using some require the user to do something that (s)he doesn't need to do when using others?

You can insert a CF card backwards and end up damaging the pins on the reading device. I ended up doing that to my camera. No permanent damage, thankfully, although I did have to open it up to straighten the pin again.

A SD card is notched so the leads can't be damaged by inserting it backwards.