Microdrive vs cf card

Just ordered an Coolpix 5000 with ikelite housing. Now I wonder if it's better to go for a 1 Gb microdrive (biggest capacity) or 512 Mb cf card (more reliable because of the lack of moving parts). CF card should be more tolerable for shock when entering the water in rough conditions. Any ideas/experiences/comments? I read a story about the (first) 340 Mb mdrives being not so reliable in a wet environment.

I don't have a whole lot of experience with the Microdrives, but I'd lean towards getting a medium sized (256, 512) CF card instead of the 1 Gb Microdrive. Beyond the issue of moving parts and sensitivity, there's other things to take into account.

I'd rather get a couple of small cards than 1 large one, because if the large one fails, you're out of luck.

I also believe that in general, the CF cards are slightly faster than the Microdrives. I'd try to get the fastest media I could since we suffer enough from time lags (shutter lag, etc.).

Just my $0.02...

Tom

I agree that no moving parts seems like a no brainer decision.

I've got a 256 and 512 meg cards from mydigitaldiscount.com. They are great prices, and the fastest cards out there, according to the tests at dpreview.

I've used them both with my G2, and found them to be about 3 times faster than the card that came with the camera.

The 3 is probably the limit of the G2 electronics, and not the speed of the cards.

The media review article at dpreview is very informative reading...

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/mediacompare/

Microdrives are Cheap, thats the only good thing about them. They are far from reliable and they make a lot of noise.

I've used a 1 gig MD since I got my D30, nearly two years ago. I've had no problems with reliability (though I know there are those who have) and I don't agree that they are noisy, mine is whisper-quiet! Perhaps the older ones (170 meg and original 340) were noisier?

I know 3 or 4 other folks that also use the MD exclusively for their picture-taking, all using the 1 gig model. So far none of us have had any problems with them.

I don't worry overly much about the drive dying in mid-dive and leaving me with no pictures. In theory a MD should be less reliable than a CF, but the question really is it reliable enough for your task?

I personally would stay away from MDs. I think that several 256Mb cards are the way to go. One thing for sure - buy fast memory. The CP5000 is a dog with the 32 Mb Sandisk card that comes with it. Throw it away. Better yet, get a pic of it under water. Lexar 4x cards perform at over twice the speed of the Sandisk card in the CP5000. I did some performance tests comparing The SNDK card and my LEXR 4x and 12x cards. The camera was unable to take advantage of the 12x speed. You can buy LEXR 256 Mb cards for about $75.

You probably will not notice a difference taking 1 or 2 shots at a time underwater because of the large cache. If you plan to use it otherwise, buy faster memory. SNDK is now selling their new line of Ultraflash, but I am sold on LEXR.

Well, I got a MD with my camera which worked fine. But I bought a 256 CF card and it writes significantly faster to my 5000. You will definetly run down the battery before you can fill the card at highest Jpeg. I was pricing altra fast 512 cards today. Maybe overkill for the 5000, but probably just right for my next camera. The think is with 1 Gb FC cards out the price on the 512 is bound to come down alot before I need it for a new camera. Note they were dealing today and were making me offers and reducing them by the minute on top of the line 512 cards.

I could not get more than 30 minutes of battery life with the MD drive, I got a couple of 512 flash cards and I get more than 1 hour of high use.

I can't speak for the 1Gig but the MD 340 sounds like a Chevy after a long drive, knocks and pings.

I've only had my 1GB MD for a short time, but in my E-20, using a fresh set of 1600mHa batteries, I was able to fill the MD - (105 RAW images), review them on the lcd twice, and download about half of them before the batteries died.

No noise out of this drive at all. From everything I've read, the 1GB is a considerable improvement over the 340's (as they should be).

Richard