CF card reader

Hi ... am new to digital ... currently taking photos on a canon 30D ... I

download directly from my camera onto my pc through Photoshop elements 5.0 and

do the necessary adjustments in Photoshop ... There is a Tesco store nearby,

who have a photographic lab ... they do not have a facility to read floppy

disks and can only dowload the photos from a CF card ... I need to know

recommendations of which CF card reader to purchase, so as to copy the edited

photos from Photoshop Ekements back onto a spare cf card ... I use windows XP

pro .... regards ... Helen

The brand is irrelevant (in my experience), so focus on speed. Firewire is fastest in my

experience. USB2 is next. USB 1.1 isn't worth buying since USB2 card readers are backward

compatible. You need to check whether you have firewire and/or USB2 on your computer.

Thanks for the info ... not sure if I have Firewire but have USB2 ... regards... Helen

I'm not familiar with Canon, but I wonder if you actually need a CF reader at all for this (although a good idea to have one anyway); I think you should be able to upload with your existing lead.

 

Do you have a CD writer on your PC? - I'm pretty sure Tesco are able to print from CDs, but not 100% on that.

 

As Rich says, any CF reader will do, the 'speed' applies to the card not the reader, so long as it is USB2 compatible and not just USB 1. USB2 and Firewire are much the same speed, but you are more likely to have Firewire if you use a Mac as opposed to PC. USB 1 is very slow.

What the others said; any USB2 card reader that can accommodate your CF cards is fine. A large Tesco probably carries something appropriate. (And yes, in my experience, USB2 and Firewire are equally fast, so you're not missing anything!)

thanks for all the info! ... have bought a cheap '65 in 1' card reader for a few pounds on ebay ... regards ... Helen

Take care not to bend pins in your camera when putting the cf card in. That is why I use my USB cord only.

 

Errol

There is a review of Sandisk CF cards and readers here: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/sandisk.html

 

What is important to note is that speed depends on the combination of the card and reader. Sometimes a USB2 reader will be faster than a Firewire reader with one type of card and just the opposite with other cards.

 

If you want to be able to read CF and SD (but not SDHC) cards, the the best is probably the Sandisk Extreme USB2.

I don't know how you can say usb 2 is as fast as firewire, but in my experiences there is no comparison. i went from usb2 to the sandisk extreme 4gb IV firewire bundle and the difference was tremendous. The setup cut download time in half.

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-FireWire-Reader-Bundle/dp/B000HW5WRW/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-7604345-4665622?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1186234247&sr=8-1

 

If you don't shoot allot of pictures at a time or don't shoot raw ever then it isn't worth it but if you want to see your pictures right away this is definetly worth it