CF Cards
When I was out shopping Today I spotted a Large CF card at a Price that was unheard of a few months ago. Knowing that you can never have too many cards, I decided to grab it while it was on special.
I managed to purchase the last Sandisk Extreme III 4Gig CF card in the store for a measly $125. Well, $125 is measly when you consider the following.
Since I have had a DSLR in August 2005, I have purchased several Cards of various size and speeds.
When I got my Camera, I grabbed a 512Meg Ultra II card and it cost me $149.00. This card is a 40x write speed card and at the time was pretty fast!
The next card I purchased was another 512Meg card - I bought it a fw weeks later it was a 40X Lexar card and it was only $99. It was a real Bargain when compared to the original card I purchased just a few weeks earlier.
Then, in late 2005, I started learning about shooting RAW I needed some bigger cards as the 512Meg cards only store around 30 RAW files. I looked to EBay for my next card and picked up a 1Gig Kingston Elite Pro, which was a 66X speed card. I think I paid around $100 for it. The 1Gig card was a step-up in capacity and in just a few short months, the price had dropped to be the same as what a 512 was! With the 1Gig Card, I could now shoot around 60 shots on a single card.
With a need for more capacity, I bought another 1G Kingston card in Jan 2006, but this time, the price was around the $80 mark - a further drop in real terms.
These cards served me well, and at the time I purchased a lens the store I got it from had a Faster, bigger card for a price that I couldn't resist. So in August 2006 I moved to 2Gig. 2Gig moved me to around 120 shots/per card.
The Card is an 88x PHOTO SENO III by Apacer. This card was $120. I was so impressed with the speed and performance of this one I went back to the store to buy another one but couldn't - they had sold out. I tried for a few weeks, but the didn't get any more in so I was went looking.
I went to another shop and managed to get hold of a 2Gig ExtremeIII Sandisk card. Now the Extreme III is a 133x write speed. The price on it was a massive $189 everywhere else I had been looking so I was not interested until I got it for $120!
I have been very happy using the 2 2Gig cards I had in my 2 cameras and had not really thought about upgrading - well until today anyhow!
Today, I bit the bullet because someone had a 4Gig Extreme III card on special - Yep, for only $125 I grabbed a pretty good bargain (it was the last one on the shelf). Thats right - for only $5 more than what I paid 8 months ago, I was able to once again double the capacity!
If we look back, in not even 2 years, I have gone from 512Meg, 40x speed to 4Gig 133x speed cards. The cost has dropped from $150 to $125, while the capacity has gone up 8X.
Now, not only did I get a super fast 4Gig card for $125, but I also got a couple of bonuses as well. In the packaging there is a copy of Rescue Pro - software that can recover deleted files off your card at no additional cost. A quick google, and I could but it for $60.
There was also another software package on offer with this card - and that is Capture One LE Raw workflow program. It had a product key, and offered free registration - $99 Value!
So, for my $125, I got software worth a total of $160 and a 4Gig CF card that will let me take around 240 RAW images on it!
Stay tuned, I'll be looking at Capture One LE in the next few days and giving my impression of it
