Sandisk 256mb Ultra II Compact Flash Card

[baby_c]

I woulld like to know how the Sandisk 256mb Ultra II Compact Flash Card works with the Canon Powershot S400. Your response is very much appreciated. Thankyou.

[gibsonpd3620]

The card should work OK. You will not be able to take advantage of speed of the card because the camera can not use any speed or 12 or 16X

[baby_c]

Thankyou for your response. Do you have any recommendations of which card would work well with the Powershot S400. If you or anyone does please let me know. Thankyou.

[TimXX]

Re: the Sandisk Ultra II. On my FZ10 the following delays before another shot can be made after a 5 shot burst are:
Sandisk 256MB: 10.8 (seconds)
Panasonic 16MB: 5.8 (seconds)
Sandisk Ultra II 256MB: 2.5 (seconds)

Big difference as you can see.
Tim

[eric s]

TimXX

The Sandisk 256 is one of the slowest cards made. It is not surprising that it was that slow. I know nothing about the Panasonic, but they are not known for their CF cards.

If you had compared against some known top brands like Lexar, Delkin or Viking then I'd be impressed at the difference.

Yes, the SanDisk Ultra II's are fast cards, but I doubt they are much faster than other major brands in the cheaper (that is a relative term) cameras.

Eric

[Virus]

What about in the Canon S50? Circuit City has the SanDisk 512mb CF card for $89 on sale. Price Club has the SanDisk 256 Ultra II card for $64.99. Normally, I'm never in a place that I couldn't offload my pics to make space for new ones, but you never know. I travel the globe with my job. Which should I buy?

[eric s]

Virus

If those two were the only choices... that would be a very, very hard choice.

You really have to give more info on the 512MB CF card. If it were just that "a 512MB card" then I'd probably get the Ultra II because it will be much faster, but it would be difficult.

This is what you are asking:
Will I find it more frustrating to run out of space on the card, or will I find it more frustrating to have a long delay between pictures because the card is slow?

I do think we are qualified to answer that question for you. If you don't mind running out pictures sooner (i.e. you don't think you'll take many, so you'll run out rarly, or you'll have more money saved next month to buy another card) then buy the much faster 256MB card. If you think it will be really frustrating to run out of space (to the point that you won't mind a potentially longer delay between pictures) then buy the 512MB card.

I, personally, dislike either situation and would do more research for another card that is on sale that is 512MB but faster than the generic SanDisk card.

Eric

[Virus]

"You really have to give more info on the 512MB CF card. If it were just that "a 512MB card" then I'd probably get the Ultra II because it will be much faster, but it would be difficult." What other info do you need? It was my assumption that Sandisk only makes a standard CF card and then faster ones. It's the Blue/Red labeled plain jane SanDisk 512mb CF card for $89.

Here is Canon's response:

Thank you for contacting Canon product support.

The only feature on our cameras that will utilize the high speed rated Compact Flash (CF) cards is the Continuous Shooting feature. Unless this one feature is of extreme importance to you, you will honestly be wasting your money on a high speed rated CF card. The CF cards that come packaged with our cameras do not have a speed rating. I recommend that you purchase a CF card with the memory capacity in mind, not the speed rating.

I hope that this helps. If you need further assistance, please respond at your earliest convenience.

[Virus]

Another question comes to mind. How fast is the generic SanDisk cards?

[eric s]

If it says nothing other than SanDisk, then it's probably their really slow model. They are roughtly 1-4x... somewhere in that range. Very, very slow.

It should be said that I don't know if their really slow (1x cards) were made in 512MB version (in other words, I would have hoped that they would have stopped making their slow cards in the newer sizes and 512mb is not an "old" size of CF card.. but I don't believe they have.)

My usual recommendation is to get something in the 12x range. By modern standards that is a bit slow, but most cameras won't write any faster than that... so as Canon says, it's a waste of money (I find it rather refreshing that they said what I'd consider to be the right answer, and didn't try to get you to buy one of their cards.)

As to the "more info" I wanted... what you gave was enough. I just wanted to be sure that it didn't give some more info. Their slow cards (historically) have said nothing other than SanDisk.

Eric