# Educate me on digital camera media! (please) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 1, 2005, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-digital-camera-media-please/315056 "2005-08-01T01:09:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2005, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-digital-camera-media-please/315056/21 "2005-08-02T18:22:01Z")
**Semperfi** , you could be correct. My comment is based on information gleaned from the [www.dcresource.com](http://www.dcresource.com) digital camera discussion board. It’s the answer supplied whenever someone wanted to know if they could use a larger capacity SM card in their camera. And I did not mean to say by using the word controller that there was a discrete device involved. Just that the maximum card capacity for a SM device was due to constraints built into the device rather than into the card. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2005, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-digital-camera-media-please/315056/22 "2005-08-02T18:28:40Z")
> [@Cynical Optimist](#): > > **Compact Flash** is in and of itself largely obsolete, but **Micro Drive** is forward compatible with it (MD devies can usually use CF media, not vice versa). Popular with high-end devices due to it’s multi-gigabyte capacity, until recently unavailable in other form factors. Whaaaa? AFAIK all professional DSLR cameras use compact flash. I can think of only one amateur DSLR that uses a different medium. The new entry level D50 from Nikon uses SD but they continue to make the CF/Microdrive compatible D70 as well as their professional cameras which use the CFI/II format cards. Microdrives have some popularity because they have a lower cost per megabyte but on the down side they slower than CF, consume more power and are more fragie. I have been using a 1GB microdrive for nearly four years but I trust it less and less. What other flash memory formats besides CF and Sony memory stick have a multi gigabyte capacity? **minor7flat5** , the only SD device I have is a Palm Tungsten E and have a 1gb card for it so I can use it as an MP3 player. ---
**Author:** ![critter42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@critter42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/critter42)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-digital-camera-media-please/315056/23 "2005-08-02T18:35:16Z")
CF cards also have a true IDE mode on their controller - hence the MicroDrives. I own an Epson PhotoPC 700 (from about 1998 or so), and all the equipment specs I can find state that the max it can take is Type I 32MB - that’s even what their tech support said a couple of years ago when I was going to be a 64MB card for vacation. Well, so far I haven’t found a limit other than the number of available pictures left counter (I maxed it out at 999 with a 512 CF card :)). ---
**Author:** ![Cynical\_Optimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Cynical\_Optimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cynical_Optimist)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2005, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-digital-camera-media-please/315056/24 "2005-08-02T19:33:29Z")
> [@Una Persson](#): > > I hear this a lot, and yet so many of the top of the line cameras use this, and CompactFlash seems to be gaining in popularity, not waning. The new Canon Digital Rebel XT I bought for Fierra uses CF, the same level Nikons I looked at use CF, and AFAIK the next gen Nikons use CF as well. An awful lot of our laptops at work use CF (several thousands). Regarding higher end equipment you may well be right. I was researching consumer-level items. There were plenty of CF cameras available in the 1.0-2.0 megapixel non-bells-and-whistles range but not so much anymore. Most of the devices I’ve shopped for have switched to SD (or xD/SM depending on manufacturer). I have no use for laptops so haven’t looked into those, my comments were strictly about lower-end cameras. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-digital-camera-media-please/315056/25 "2005-08-03T03:44:19Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > I suppose that what is important is the limit of your device. My mouse pointer was pixels away from the “submit order” button when I decided to do a quick check on the camera I was ordering and found that it supported up to 512mb. Of course, there was a 1GB SD card sitting in my cart, which I quickly switched for 2x512mb. I am pleased that I found this out in time. If you are talking about **SD** then you would have been just fine with a 1 gig card. While most manufacturers only test their cameras up to a certain point, I’ve never heard of one that doens’t work with a 1 gig SD card, which are pretty standard these days. > [@garym](#): > > The reason for this limit is that the controller for the SmartMedia card is built into the device, while the controller for the CompactFlash is built into the card itself. This is my understanding as well from when I had an SmartMedia camera. Compact Flash is most certainly not dead. In fact, the cards have gotten so large that there’s not much point in getting a microDrive anymore, what with their slowness, increased battery use, and catastrophic failure mode. True, they are more common in dSLRs but they are still available in many consumer camera models. They currently come in 8gig size. The maximum size for SD is 2gig. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/educate-me-on-digital-camera-media-please/315056.md?page=1)