Memory Cards for the Oly 5050

I currently use a 256MB xd card and a 256MB CF card with my Oly 5050. I love the fact that a push of the button and I have another fresh card to burn. Problem is that now that I am using only RAW mode underwater(can't say enough about it) I find myself rather limited in storage. I go freediving for about 5 or 6 hours in a day here in Hawaii on the weekend and take a lot of pictures. Yesterday I found myself erasing so-so pics to make room for more pics because I filled both cards. So I am looking to get a big xd and Compact Flash card. Any recommendations for brand in the CF dept(with write speed taken into account)? Place to get(cheap and reliable)? Thanks in advance!

--John

Look here:

http://www.molon.de/imaging/5050writetime/index.html

I bought a Ridata 1Gb 40X CF for the 5050. It worked well during testing, but I never used it u/w because my 5050, new (never wet) PT-015 and CF card were stolen at the dive site before I could use them. I also had a 256Mb Fuji xD in the camera, the idea being to shoot only RAW.

Herb,

How do you find this to be in terms of accuracy? Did you look at the speeds professed for your cards? Just yesterday I was shooting both cards and noticed that my xD card was much faster than the CF card. The thing that surprises me is that, according to the charts, it should have been the opposite. I have a Lexar 12X 256MB card and an Oly 256MB card...Of course, when I thought to myself "Gee the XD is faster" I wasn't using the same conditions necessarily, it was just a passing observation at the time. I will check it out Wednesday when I next use the camera to see if there is a big difference. I coulda sworn the Lexar was slower, though. Anyhow, it seems Oly has a 512MB card out now. It looks nice and newegg has it for a little over 200. Are there any gig XD cards out there yet? If so, I wonder if they would work in the Oly without any firmware upgrades...? Hmm...

--John

I haven't tested any of this info myself, and never used an XD card. I've been shooting with 1G IBM microdrive and the write time seem close to what they quoted.

The Ridata 1GB CF cards are blistering fast - much faster than the xD cards.

I'll take a look into that then. 1GB should be plenty of memory...course, that's what I said when I loaded in two 256MB cards...

Umm..where are some good places to shop for the ridata 1GB card?

I use a Transcend 512 30x and it writes a RAW in about 4.5s. It is definitely faster than my Oly 128 xD card.

Sandisk has also released an Ultra II series, though there's no write speed data with the C5050. There is data available with DSLRs here: http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007

I tested the Ridata 1Gb 40X CF extensively with RAW on a 5050, and it was twice as fast as a Fujifilm 256Mb xD card, and also twice as fast as a cheap Dane-Elec 256Mb CF card.

In fairly comprehensive tests that I performed, xD was never noticeably faster than SmartMedia, whereas good CF cards were a lot faster than xD.

xD is an overpriced dog. Rather spend the cash on a bigger CF card.

I have a Sandisk Ultra II 256Mb CF on order and will test that when it arrives. From comments that I have seen it sounds like a good card, certainly much better than the Sandisk Ultra's, which never really performed.