Has anybody compared these two cameras? I'm think of getting one or the other. I'm also concerned about the difference in the storage cards these cameras use. Compact Flash seems to be the industry leader. I don't want to get in a Beta vs VHS again. Just what is the pros and cons of each format? The answer to this last question will help the most in which camers I get. Thanks to all that answer.

-- Bill Stanczyk (snakeman48@juno.com), May 05, 1999

Answers

As I understand it, the advantage of Compact Flash is really based on the fact that it has a built in controller chip and you should be able to use just about any size compact flash available with a CF based camera. The disadvantages are it's price and a very slight physical size disadvantage vs. smartmedia. Some people do think CF is better packaged than smartmedia and may take more abuse, but I don't think anyone will go out of their way to prove it. :-)

The primary advantage of smartmedia is cost. Without an onboard controller chip it should be cheaper to produce and does seem to retail for considerably less money. This can also be a disadvantage in that the camera must provide the controller and older controllers or contact layouts may not support the largest, newest size smartmedia available(an issue that came to light in the past year with many manufacturers charging to upgrade cameras that didn't support the latest sizes.) This becomes a non-issue if you're happy with the media you buy with the camera and don't feel that you'll need to purchase larger sizes. Since the manufacturers recently went through this they may have already allowed for it. The other disadvantage is that CF comes in much larger sizes than smartmedia to date. Smartmedia will probably eventually catch up as it gains further momentum and the price differential should get even larger between it and CF.

I'm not sure about power consumption or other more technical issues, but will probably be looking into it soon. On the one hand you'd think larger size cards would consume more power, on the other hand they don't require any power to continue to store the images once they're written to the card and probably only consume significant power during a read from, or a write to, the card.

-- Gerald Payne (gmp@francorp.francomm.com), May 05, 1999.

I think the main thing is just storage capacity. if 32MB is enough for you then it's a non issue, otherwise you might lean towards CF.

-- benoit (foo@bar.com), May 06, 1999.

i just heart that ritz camera will be getting 32 mb smartmedia cards and sell at same price as the 16mb .... not bad huh

-- michael barbalic (gotwood@ameritech.net), May 18, 1999.