I am purchasing an Olympus 2020z. I know it comes with a SmartMedia card. Since I am a beginer at Digital Photography I need some help understanding about downloading methods to my PC. I was wondering if someone could help and explain me how does card readers and Flashpaths work. My PC does not have USB so are those my only options? How do they "plug"into the computer? How faster are they? Thanks, Daniella Miranda

-- Daniella Miranda (bebejolie@mail.com), July 13, 2000

Answers

If you do a search on this forum for the phrase "transfer speed" you'll find a number of previous posts concerning relative speeds.

Serial port transfer is very slow. About 20 mins. for 8MB (sometimes half that depending on the serial port speed the camera and software can handle, but no faster!) I think the 2020Z supports serial transfers? Even if it does, they are woefully slow and can be aggravating to get working on a PC. Flashpaths are about twice as fast as serial -according to others, I don't have one. They accept a smartmedia card and then plug into a standard 3.5" floppy drive like a disk. You need to install a driver program that comes with them to use them. As far as I know, they're quite simple to use, but still rather slow.

Parallel port based digital film readers or card readers transfer 8MB in as little as 15 seconds or about 550KBytes/sec. I have a Lexar unit and have had no trouble with it as long as I only use Window's Explorer program to transfer files from it. It comes with a driver program. Using other viewing programs, etc. to view images from the smartmedia card rather than just copying them can lead to problems, so I just copy them to hard disk and go from there.

USB cameras or readers can be faster than parallel based readers in theory, but in actual practice seem to run at about the same speed or a bit slower. If your machine supports USB it's a nice, simple, inexpensive, just plug in a cable way to go. If it doesn't, it can be a virtual nightmare of updating operating systems, trying to find correct motherboard cables, installing a USB card, and disabling improperly implemented USB support on your motherboard or in your BIOS, etc. Ok, maybe nightmare is a bit strong, but it could be vexxing. In fairness, if you have Win98 and either have the hardware on the motherboard and can get the bios to turn it on or install a USB card(about $30 -maybe $20 OR LESS), it's a very nice way to go.

PCMCIA adapters let you insert a smartmedia into them and then plug the resulting combo into a pcmcia port on a typical laptop or into a pcmcia card reader installed in desktop PC. They're very fast and very handy. Probably faster than parallel or USB, but all three are probably somewhat limited by disk speed in average PC's (or at least in my older equipment) so it's harder for me to judge. They require a Windows driver, but they're available on the standard Win98 install disk. PCMCIA adapters are an especially nice method for downloading images to a small laptop when on a trip or on the road so you can keep snapping pictures without investing a fortune in camera media.

I think the above covers about the whole gamut of devices available, and hope that it helps. If you already have Windows 98 don't dismiss USB too soon. It may just require installing a $20 USB card and plugging in the camera and would provide a connection point for future equipment. Good Luck!

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@surferz.net), July 14, 2000.

I have the Oly C-2000Z camera and use the "Flash Path" floppy disk adapter. Very convienent and reasonably fast; certainly much better than hooking up the camera to the computer. Caution, only delete pictures from your smart media card while it is in the camera. Saves a lot of trouble.

-- Virgil Howarth (vhowarth@aol.com), July 14, 2000.