Compact Flash card price

I am going to trip in June, and I'll need to buy some extra CF cards

(Sundisk Ultra II 4 GB or 8 GB or Lexar 80X) for my Nikon D200.

Sometimes its in stock, sometimes its out of stock (I use only

respectable stores: B&H, Adorama, Amazon.com).

Do you think it's a good idea to buy it now or wait for possible

price drop? Any rumors about price drop?

Just like prices for DSLRs, memory card prices will continue to drop over time. In other words, the longer you wait, the better off you are as far as prices go. The main risk is that if what you want is out of stock later on for an extended period, you might not have what you need during your trip. Moreover, if you order in the last minute and what you receive happens to be defective, you could be stuck also.

 

Those are the risk/reward issues you need to evaluate for yourself.

newegg.com has 2gb Sandisk Ultra II CF cards for $78 or so, I've never had trouble ordering from them. I currently have two 1gb CF cards and will be buying a few 2gb CF cards before a trip to Japan in Nov.

 

Dave

You're probably better off to stick to 2-3 2Gb cards and get a photo tank to back them up to. The larger cards cost quite a premium, the extra cost of the 8GB cards will get you 40+GB of tank storage.

Seems like the best buy these days are the 2GB CF cards. A question you'd have to answer for yourself is whether you actually do need the Ultra II cards. I've got a couple of 1GB Ultra II's for times when I need them, but the rest of my cards are the regular "blue" Sandisk cards. And yes, get a portable storage device.

 

KL

I just picked up an 8gb micro drive for $150. Although I'm sure CF cards are more durable, I'm not in the habit of abusing cards! I'm also not a pro, by any means, and this gives me a lot of space for not a lot of money.

I really think you need to match the card to the Camera. My D70 did not really take advantage of faster writing cards since the NEF files were only 6mb. But the same card in my D200 is a DOG since the files are 3 times larger. I bought a Scandisk Exteme III 2gb card last month for $98 at b&h. The 4gb version of the same card was $220, so I could get 2 of the 2gb cards for less money then the 4gb. This way if I had a failure I would have another card to use. I dont like putting all my eggs in one basket.

 

I like the Extreme III cards because they write at 20 mb/s where the Ultra II's only write at 9mb/s. The Lexar 133x cards also write at 20mb/s.

Memory card prices drop at a fairly steady rate. So you are better off waiting until you need them. Unless you want a top of the line card (capacity or performance), for which you will pay a premium, it is highly unlikely they will be out of stock. Go to www.pricegrabber.com and you will find all the places you can get them. Their merchant reviews are fairly accurate.

Kevin, your pricing info is already out of date. In mid February, I orderd a 4G Sandisk Extreme III from B&H at a special price at $215. That same deal has already dropped to $197.95 today, but that card is currently out of stock and so is the 2G version:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=427435&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

 

For those who use a D2X or D200, I would get at least 2G cards and preferably 4G ones. Sometimes I shoot a lot per day, e.g. wildlife action or weddings, and I would much rather deal with no more than a few cards.

I have a different spin on jumbo cards. I think that 4 and 8 gig cards can be a problem waiting to happen. If you are using 4 or 8 gig cards at a wedding or a sports shoot or anything else where you are shooting large numbers of irreplaceable shots, you are taking a risk in my opinion.

 

If you shoot 8 gig of shots for an event and they are on two 4 gig cards and one fails - then you have effectively lost 50% of your production. I would rather shoot 8 gig on four 2 meg cards to spread the risk. Sure it takes a few seconds to change out a card and sure cards do not fail very often (actually, thank God I have never had one fail), but do you want to tell a bride that her ceremony shots no longer exist because your card failed? Or that the first 1/2 of the game is gone?

 

I'd rather swap cards and be safe. It is certainly no burden to carry 6 or 8 two gig cards in a tiny case. They weigh nothing and take up almost no space. To me, more smaller cards are the safe bet and, as a bonus, they cost less!

Not sure if this is of interest or not....a couple of stories fromt he BBC website last week:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4824628.stm

 

and, one day later:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4828686.stm

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

If you're thinking of getting a photo tank take a hard look at the Epson P-2000 (40 gigs plus a BIG beautiful viewing screen). I bought one for overseas trips where I didn't want to drag a laptop around. They're coming down because the 80 gig P-4000 is available now. They were available (new) on ebay from Norman Camera (I've had good experience with them) for $380 with a $50 rebate. The screen display is really amazing and it's much better than looking at the pix on a 2" or 2.5" LCD on the camera. Unless you're shooting a ton of raw with a high MP camera 40 gigs is a lot of storage.

 

Cheers- Bob