Price of Compact Flash Cards Continues to Drop

Declining memory prices are hardly headline news, but these prices are quite interesting: under $43 for 8GB CF cards and under $69 for 16GB (!) CF cards. (Does anyone know if I can even use a 16GB compactflash card in my 5D?)

Every so often someone opines that moving to a higher MP count camera doesn’t make sense, asking “how will you afford the memory to handle those giant files?” The answer is that the memory gets cheaper and cheaper all the time. Hard drive prices have dropped a lot recently, and 500GB drives are now regularly available for around $100. I haven’t done the math to prove it, but I have a hunch that the cost of storing one image from a 16MP DSLR is now probably less than what we paid to store a single image from a 4MP camera a few years ago.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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Lexar CompactFlash Reader and Customer Support

I’ve been using a nice little Lexar Firewire CompactFlash Reader to transfer files to my computer. Last week, after a computer upgrade, the reader stopped working. Since I’ve been through the upgrade cycle many times I contacted Lexar to let them know about the issue and find out about updates.

The reply was basically, “Go buy a new one” and “contact our sales department to get the right one.”

Does Lexar miss the irony in their email message? It tells me me that since Lexar doesn’t support its products I should buy another Lexar product. I paid (a lot) more for the fancy Lexar reader when I made my original purchase, assuming that I’d get a more reliable product and better support in return.

I won’t buy any Lexar products in the future. Instead, I think I’ll just go for the cheapest no name comparable products and accept their shorter life spans.