Memory Card??

[BonnieT6]

What is the besy card for the Olympus E-500? I have read that it can use the XD, Compact Flash1 or CF microdrive. I have a gig XD card, but would like to know what is better, what s the diffrence? Thanks for the help.
Bonnie

[Photo-John]

I can't remember if there are high-speed xD cards. But CompactFlash is by far the most prevalent type of digital camera media for SLRs. For that reason, there are tons of options and I believe you get the most for your money. You have more manufacturer and speed options as well as the confidence that comes from knowing that lots more people are using the same media as you if you have CompactFlash. There's no reason to not use the xD card you have. But if you buy more memory, I'd encourage you to buy CompactFlash.

[Jaedon]

I chose the CF cards because the speed on them is faster than on the XD cards. The write speed of the E500 is 60 (no idea of the units used to measure that speed) but my CF cards can be written on to at 100 .. the XD card is only 45. Basically the faster the camera can write to the card the faster you can shoot again.

I have a 256 XD card from an old P&S camera that got broken and wasn't worth fixing in the camera along with my CF card. That way if the CF card ever fails you can simply pull it out and the camera will default to the XD card and you won't skip a beat.

[Marc2B4]

I've got 10 CF cards ranging in size from 256MB to 1GB. I use all of them and will probably need some more. That's OK though, they're cheap and durable, and when you compare them to film and procesing? Way cheaper.

[rsimmons]

There are high speed xD cards. Specifically, they are listed as xD H (there's also xD M, which are slower), but both are slower than a CF according to the reviews I've read.

[Rocket_Scientist]

My camera does not use either of those, but my daughter has an older, smaller, Fuji camera that uses xD. If I were faced with your decision, I would opt for the CF due largely to popularity, which generally translates into better availability, as well as lower cost. Also, I have seen some card readers that support every format except xD--don't know why. I would still use the xD cards I had, but would get CF for all new pruchases.