For more on digitAl photogrAphy, visit http://www.shortCourses.Com 4
- Memory Stick™, a proprietary format from Sony Corporation, is shaped
something like a stick of gum. These cards are used only in Sony products.
- Hard drives such as Hitachi’s Microdrive and Sony’s Compactvault are
high speed, high capacity hard disk drives. These drives are so small they can
be plugged into a Type II CompactFlash slot on a digital camera or flash card
reader. (Type I CompactFlash slots are thinner.)
- One-time use flash cards have been introduced with the idea that flash
memory is so inexpensive you can leave your photos on a card instead of
copying then to a computer. This is not recommended for serious photogra-
phers.
One thing to consider is the “speed” of a card. Many companies sell regu-
lar and more expensive high-speed versions. Unless you are missing shots
because your camera can’t move images from the buffer fast enough, you may
be better off investing elsewhere in your system, especially since any bottle-
neck may be in your camera, not the card.
When you first buy a memory card or use it in a different camera you should
format it. Every camera that accepts these cards has a Format command
listed somewhere in its menus. Formatting prepares a card for use in a cam-
era, and reformatting it when first using it in a specific camera ensures the
card will be accurately written to and read in that camera. You may also find
that formatting fixes a card that has developed problems. Just be aware that
the Format command erases all of the images stored on a card. Should you
ever do this by mistake, there is digital image recovery software available. To
find it, just Google “digital photo recovery.”
Some cameras come with software that lets you connect the camera to the
computer (called tethering it) and operate it from the computer. When shoot-
ing this way, captured images can be stored on the computer’s hard drive
instead of on the camera’s memory card. Although this approach is most
often used in a studio setting, it’s also occasionally used by landscape photog-
raphers when they want to immediately evaluate images on the computer’s
much larger screen.
you have Asset management
than one card, a case
protects your spares.
Courtesy of In Any Case
at inanycase.com.
Hitachi makes the
Microdrive, a tiny high
capacity hard drive.
in-CAmerA imAge storAge deviCes
