What CF card should I buy?
 

I just bought a Canon A70 and I'm in the market for a larger CF card. Are there any brands I should stay away from?

I don't need the fastest or best card -- I just want something that's relatively inexpensive, reasonably reliable and won't slow down regular shooting. (I'm not too concerned about anything like continuous shooting since I don't think I'm likely to use it that much).

Thanks for your help!

Memory is really coming down in pricely lately. The two most popular seem to be SanDisk and Lexar - you won't go wrong with either. If speed is not an issue, you can easily get a 256MB CF for 50 or less from either of these brands. Number one thing you just want to be careful with is buying a no name brand because they could put you at a higher risk for card failure resulting in picture loss.

I wouldn't go beyond about 16-18x. You can, but you're probably wasting your money as the camera won't be able to write faster than it.

Lexar and SanDisk are both good brands. Viking & Delkin aren't bad either. Personally, I have 2 Lexars.

Eric

The Lexar I own is the most reliable I've ever had with Viking a close second, though it's gotten cranky a couple of times. I threw out one by SimpleTech. It gave me more errors than pictures, and I'll never buy another one.

I have a SimpleTech SD (128K) that is relatively new - no problems yet. Came with my new camera. I used a Lexar (128 CF) for almost two years in my old Kodak 3600 and it was always reliable.

I just ordered this yesterday. $36 after rebates, but I had to pay $3 tax. The Ultra II is about $10 more.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...634351-7187131

For SanDisk or Lexar - also check out Buy.com, they have some pretty decent deals right now and are a reputable site.

http://www.buy.com/retail/computers/....asp?loc=15579

I have been a Sandisk user for years (Smartmedia and CF) and
have never had one fail.

One word of caution:

Do not use card as another "drive". Just edit copy, edit paste
your photos to your hard drive from card then edit select all
to delete the files on your card.

:)

Olympus recommends erasing by reformatting the card in the camera, but it appears you've never had a problem with your method. Hmmm....