9.What types of Storage Media

Storage media - the "film" of digital cameras

What the film is to a conventional camera, is the memory card to the digital camera. While there are also models with a permanently installed memory, removable memory cards are more practical because, provided you have enough of them, they offer you virtually unlimited photo fun.

The cards consist of elements that retain their information even when the power is off. As a result, they can be loaded into the camera like normal film and used to save the photos. Later, once the photos have been transferred to a computer at home or printed out on paper, the cards can be erased and used again. If you want to archive your image data permanently, you can either use a CD writer or take up your photo dealer on his offer to put your image data onto CD for you.

In contrast to the world of classical film, there is unfortunately no uniform standard for these media as of yet. Every digital camera is designed for a specific storage system and can - apart from a few exceptions - only handle this type of memory card. At the moment, four main systems are competing for the favor of digital photographers:

• CompactFlash cards have not only the storage module, but also their own electronic controller to tell the camera what capacity they have and how they save the data. This has the advantage that the corresponding cameras automatically keep pace with the steadily increasing size of CompactFlash cards.
• SmartMedia cards are much slimmer in comparison. However, they don't come with such high capacities as CompactFlash cards and also don't have their own "intelligence". In most cases, cameras with SmartMedia cards can thus only use the media up to a precisely defined memory size - currently 128 MB.
• The MemoryStick is a memory card from Sony. It, too, has a controller of its own, but the design is completely different yet again. The advantage of MemorySticks is that almost every new piece of Sony equipment can use these memory systems - from MP3 players and camcorders, all the way to digital organizers.
• Speaking of camcorders ... The fourth standard developed almost unnoticed in the world of entertainment electronics: SD or MultiMedia cards. They are slightly thicker than SmartMedia cards, but considerably smaller.BACK