What is the difference between these flash cards?

Hi There

Was wondering if anybody knows the difference between Compact flash type 1
and Compact flash type 2 . How would u tell the difference between the two,
and is there a price difference.

Thanks in advance

Jamie

 

Compact flash type 2 are thicker than Compact flash type 1.

Some camera's only accept type 1.

Microdrives are the same size as Compact flash type 2.

Gadi

 

I am not sure if you could tell the difference between a Type I & Type II if
you had any by itself (at least if you're a "newbie" and haven't seen
zillions of them before), but if you had them side-by-side you definitely
could, as the Type II are way thicker.

Typically, entry-level cameras which accept Compact Flash--and frankly,
they're rare now as point & shoots are increasingly SD card based (a
pet-peeve of mine)--but such cameras are typically going to only accept Type
I. That's usually okay, though; now-adays, you can easily get 512 megabyte
Type I cards and even 1 Gigabyte cards which are Type I. (There are bigger
ones but most tend to be Type II and require a camera that has the FAT32
storage system which not all do.) Either way, make sure it's an "approved
card" first; some may not work even if they are Type I and physically fit,
they may not ELECTRONICALLY be compatible.

In my case, I have a Nikon Coolpix 5700 which does accept Type I or Type II,
but I simply have a 12x Lexar 512 Megabyte Type I card (link:
http://store.lexar.com/?category=21&subcategory=1&productid=CF512-12-251),
and I can get more than 300 FINE-JPEGs on them, or about 70 RAWs, and it's a
5 megapixel camera.

Microdrives are Type II, and they were popular awhile back because it was
uncommon for Type I cards to have 512 megabytes of capacity (to say nothing
of the 4 and even 8 gigabyte cards you can find). Even now Microdrives are
cheaper than Type II NON-microdrive cards of the same capacity, but me
personally I'd rather stick with a Type I or II with no moving parts.

A good rule of thumb follows (my own recommendations, not someone who's a
pro, just me) in terms of what size card you should own based on your
camera's resolution:

Megapixels Size (Megabytes)
----------- ---------------
2 64-128
3 128-256
4 256-512
5 256-512
6 512-1G
8 1-2G


Two years or so ago those might have been on the high-end; I mean, for
instance, with the 2-megapixel, a 64 card will hold almost 100 phots, a 128
about 175 photos. That's a LOT. A 32 card could hold 50, and that might be
enough for you. With the 5-megapixel, the 256 will probably hold 150 photos,
the 512 about 325 or so. Again, that's a lot; maybe a card that hold 50-100
is enough for you. But to me, memory--especially Compact Flash memory--is so
cheap, that's why now (as opposed to 2 years ago or so) I'd recommend going
pretty large.

LRH