Digital Camera Storage Media
When someone buys a new digital camera for recreational
purposes, they rarely look at the type of storage media the
camera supports. How important is the storage media, exactly?
Well, it's where your pictures are stored, so it must be pretty
important! Someone doesn't want to be in a another country
before they figure out the camera blinks "Memory Low" in red. A
new digital camera usually comes with a means of storage, but
the storage media is, most of the time, not sufficient enough to
hold the slighest amount of pictures. The average stock digital
camera may come with 16MB, 32MB, and maybe even 64MB worth of
memory media. A memory card with at least 512MB-1GB storage is
highly recommended to replace the stock memory card the camera
packaging includes. The most common types of digital camera
storage media are CompactFlash, Secure Digital, xD Picture,
Memory Stick, MicroDrive, and SmartMedia.
Most of the current digital cameras use CompactFlash cards. The
two types of CF cards are Type I and Type II(slightly thicker).
The Type II CompactFlash card is also known as MicroDrive, which
will be discussed further down this storage media list. SanDisk
describes their CF cards as "size of a matchbook and only weighs
half an ounce". There is a controller card that allows for
faster transfers. These cards are the most popular because of
the decent price and the support throughout many digital cameras.
Secure Digital Cards are the smallest digital camera media cards
in the storage media market. The cards can store up to 4GB of
memory as of now, but new technology will soon increase the max
size to 8GB. A high level of protection is guaranteed against
illegal copying. This means that Secure Digital Cards offer more
data security.
xD Picture Cards can be used in CompactFlash supported cameras
with a CompactFlash adapter. The maximum capacity of xD Picture
Cards is a gigabyte of space. The cards offer fast read and
write capabilities for digital cameras.
Memory Sticks were created by Sony for their Cybershot line of
digital cameras. They aren't supported by brands of digital
cameras other than Sony which decreases their digital camera's
support of Memory Sticks severely. Many of Sony's other
products, besides digital cameras, support Memory Sticks. The
Playstation Portable(PSP) uses Sony's Memory Sticks as well as
Sony's Vaio line.
MicroDrives are the hard drives inside of Type II CompactFlash
Cards. They have better value and are better priced than flash
memory, but flash memory has more space and storage. You may
have heard that hard drive MP3 players fail over time due to
their moving parts. The same concept can be applied to these
cards because they have moving parts as well. This is why you
may have heard that MicroDrives are unreliable and low in
quality. Many of them would break due to the mishandling of the
card.
SmartMedia cards are being replaced by the new flash card
technology. The cards are still available, but the modern
digital cameras usually don't support this type of storage media
anymore. The card is cheaper than all the other types of storage
media mentioned above.
Storage Media for digital cameras is constantly evolving and
improving in quality and capacity. Years ago, the maximum
storage capacity for an average memory card was 128MB or 256MB
at max. They cost way too much, probably 300% more than they
cost right now. The prices of digital camera storage media gets
lower every year as the technology gets better. The types of
storage media provides diversity and choice for the average
consumer with a digital camera.