Nikon d70 here I come NOW help me with the card I see extreme, Ultra, different companies. Is there anything special with the card to look for in speed? I was thinking of getting a new dvd burner to hold more pictures then saw those Smartdisk Flashtrax handheld portable storage(price is high) Anybody have something like that. You save on film and developing but with digital So many new toys. :p
Thanks again
Fran

John's comparison is 2 years old and doesn't contain any WA enabled - Write Acceleration cards. The D-70 is Write Acceleration capable, which means it can benefit from WA cards, If you are doing any continuous type shooting (the D-70 is capable of 3 frames per second for up to 144 frames) you will want the faster cards, such as Dave's swim meets or Gary Martin's crashing waves. but if not you may want to save some money and stay with standard cards, But It's nice to have the speed if you ever need it.
Once you decide what size cards you want, the price for same size/faster speed is not that great
Lexar 1GB 4x $79.95
Lexar 1GB 40x WA $89.95
Lexar 1GB 80x WA $99.95 12MB/second transfer rate

Sandisk 1 GB $74.95
Sandisk 1 GB ultra II $95.95 write speed of 9 megabytes
Sandisk 1 GB Extreme III $109.95 20MB/second sequential write and read speed.
(Prices are from B&H)

Lexar is the chosen supplier for Nikon, but I don't know if they are the only one.

With my sisters Coolpix 4500 I had problems using a Viking 512 card, camera frequently not recognizing the card, despite formatting the card.

Also Fran, There are 2 rebates for the D-70 $100.00 from Nikon and a $100.00 rebate if you buy a Epson printer at the same time on same receipt, some of the printers on the list are $100.00 so they are free after rebate.

Mark

I have 2 Lexar 1G 80x WA and 1 RiData 1G 40x/52x (Write/Read). With my D100, I notice very little speed difference. This may be different when using other cameras

I purchased a Lexar 1G Compact Flash Card, 40X on the speed. Is this a good card?

Bob

This might be a stupid ? but what is the difference between 80x WA and 40X. Is lexmar better than sandisk. If I,m spending the money should I go for Extreme or Ultra, 40x or 80x 1GB or two 512. do I shoot in raw or fine or something else

By the way what is Write Acceleration Cable
Fran

Fran, The WA enabled - Write Acceleration technology that speeds up the transfer from the camera to the card.

The D-70 has the WA - Write Acceleration technology built in to the camera, according to Lexar is what helps speed up the transfer by up to 23% as compared to the same card without WA, say a 40x W/WA vs. a 40x card

Here's an explanation from Lexar.com on the 40x and 80x factors - the multiplier speed rating

As far as which one? I can not find any info from Nikon on how fast the D-70 is capable of writing to the card. I think you would be safe buying a 1gb 40x card, that will hold about 320 pictures. Later if you think you need more, you can go larger or faster, The prices will most likley be much cheaper a year from now anyway. The 512mb card I bought a year and a half ago was $95.00 after hunting for a decent price.

Here is a capacity chart http://lexar.com/digfilm/capacity_chart.html

You will probably want to shoot in .jpeg mode, you can then choose a size and a quality that fits your needs.

Bob,I think it's a good card, your camera is about 8mp If memory serves me, If you are shooting at full size you are transferring even larger files than a D-70

Mark
Thank you you have been a great help.
Fran

Fran, I probably push my Nikon D2H harder than most digital shooters for wave photography at 8 frames/sec for as many as 25 frames in NEF (Nikon RAW mode). That's about the only sort of application where 80X makes a difference, and then it's a matter of how soon the buffer is at full capacity again. The EXTREME cards are certified to lower temps which is a plus for some of the weather I shoot in. Unless you're going to do "extreme" photography, Mark is probably right, 40X should be just fine. BTW I'm using SanDisk CFs and they work fine!

As for the FlashTrax they're great for tons of shooting where you're away from a PC or laptop but they're not cheap!

I revisited this post because I had the same questiona about the cards. I too am thinking about the D 70. Thanks for all the info!!

I shoot a ton of sports with a D2H, and at many events such as swimming, hockey or gymnastics, I'll shoot between 500-700 frames, and since they are for school yearbooks, I shoot jpeg basic files. The photos will be quite small when publ;ished, so file size isn't of great inportance to me. Organizing those files is, however, really important.

I bought an Apacer CD burner for about $250 which takes the compact flash cards and committs them right to the disk without having to use a computer. This allows me to never have to post the vast files of my computer's hard drive, and I'm able to open the disks on my computer with a program called iview, available on line (see google). Its a smaller version of the program the guys at the Providence Journal and other major paper use because it is fast and it doesn't use up much RAM. All of the disks I burn are given to the yearbook adviser, but only after I've copied the shots I really like.

About the D70, I've been following its progress closely on Photo.net, and there are mixed reviews. It's a great camera for the price, but if you are at all used to manually focusing lenses, forget it. The viewfinder is apparantly very small and can be frustrating if you like to do your own focusing. If you like to take action shots, the auto focus is the same as the D100--slow. If you want really high quality and can afford it, the D2X--12 million pixels, will be avaible soon.

Dave Thanks for your imput. I was told that I hit the age where I need reading glasses so AF is normally what I use. I normally don't shoot sports, mostly family and lighthouses and not in that order. I am very interested in the Apacer CD burner. How many pics do you get on a CD and can you use DVDs on it. Does it have a viewing screen.
Thanks
Fran

The number of pictures you can put on the cd depends on a couple of things--1) the file size of the cd, and 2) the file size of the compact flash you are using, although this isn't as important as the cd size. I typically will shoot on larger cards, but because I'm shooting for the high school yearbook when I'm shoooting sports, I shoot in basic, which is about .50 mb per shot. With a 512 card, I can shoot close to 700 pix per event. Because I'm shooting with a d2h at high speed, I'm shooting the athletes at 7.5 frames per second. Then I download to the cd, and many times I can put 2 or 3 partially shot flash cards on the cd. I use cds that are 700 mb size. There is no viewer on the unit, however I don't reformat the card (therefore erasing it) until I've checked the pictures on my laptop. I really like the cut down version of software called iview because it is fast, and I'm not tied into saving any of the pictures to my computer's hard drive. Once I know the cards are saved to the cd, I erase them from the compact flash.

When I'm shooting for beauty, I shoot in jpeg/large files so I can get the best quality available without committing to RAW or NEF files. Some argue you can't get good quality unless you shoot raw and you can't make big prints either. Baloney. I just enlarged a shot of the Plum Beach Lighthouse to 40" X 60" for a display we were having at the Providence Boat Show--it was beautiful. There was no apparent digital break up of the print and everything held up nicely. It was shot with a d100 (6 million pixels) in jpeg and I was greatly impressed with the results. The file size at jpeg with the d100 is about 2.5 mb, so you can't get quite as many frames on the compact flash or onto the cd while shooting larger files.

BTW, the best price I've found for the Apacer is at Meritline.com, about $250.

There are several e-sites that have the Apacer CD burner for $210..

Thanks David. you gave me great info I will have to ad to my list. The fact that you can blow up a pic that large and you are more than satisfied with it is the one thing I was worried about. Not that I will use that size, but to know you can is great. Thanks to everyone for all the info.