Help!-need advice on digital cameras and memory cards

[Xtine76]

Hi I was wondering if anyone could give me any advice on memory cards and how many pictures they hold with a 3 megapixel camera? How many would a 128 hold vs one with 200 or so? I am looking into buying a digital camera (finally), most likely the Canon A70 and was wondering if anyone could give me advice on the memory cards. I could take my laptop with me since i'll be driving if it would be better to manage the pics. Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[Castillo Mom]

I've done my research and decided on the Canon A70 as well. This will also by my first digital camera. Canon uses a compact flash card. The number of pics you can fit on the card depends on what resolution the camera is set at. I believe the Canon has 3 settings to choose from depending on the quality you want. You should be able to get around 100 pics on a 128 mb card using the highest resolution. Don't know if you're Costco member but they have an online coupon available but I don't remember if it was a 512 or 256 mb. I'll check and come back.

 

[AZKathy]

I would take your laptop. Then you download them daily on the laptop and take skads of pics! I cannot tell you about the bigger cards. We have a 3.2 megapixel and I only took 64 mg cards. I set the camera to take pics at the finest resolution and I got around 40 pictures on the 64 mg card. (I had 64 x 2 and a 32 just in case I got crazy with picture taking; I found all these on sale!)

I found this bit off of a quick search:

"128 MB CF Card : 200 pictures at 1600x1200 resolution
256 MB CF Card : 400 pictures at 1600x1200 resolution
512 MB CF Card : ~ 800 pictures at 1600x1200 resolution "

CF stands for Compact Flash. My resolution was set higher, so therefore, less pictures on the memory card.

Hope this helps a bit.

 

[Castillo Mom]

Found it. It's a SanDisc 512 mg compact flash card for $99 with the coupon. That's a great price and lots of room for pics.

 

[Buz]

I have the Canon A70 and just used it on our Christmas trip.

I have two 256MB cards and two sets of 2200MA NiMH rechargable batteries. At the highest resolution and the superfine setting, I get 156 shots per card. If you run video clips, they take up lots of room if you do the 640x480 setting. The clips at that resolution can be no more than 30 seconds. You can do 3 minutes each at the 320x240 setting.

I found that I would pretty much fill up both cards every day and pull them off every evening or even during the afternoon break back at the resort. To make pulling them off easier, get a CF card reader for your laptop (less than $20). This lets you drag and drop the files into your folder. Windows XP will transfer them into a picture folder, but it is slower as it will rename every file. If you go into the camera menus, turn off File No. Reset (Menu/Tools/File No. Reset). This will keep incrementing the filenames up to 9999.

I saved about 1000 pics from a 17 day trip and about 30 video clips. I took more, but deleted in the camera or on the laptop if I didn't like them.

You might want to bring a tripod or unipod for fireworks and night pics. I carried a small hiking tripod that is only about 8" long and fit in my fannypack. It has a strap so you can strap it to a pole or rail for a quick mount shot.

Zurg has a page of tips and sources here.

Good luck and have fun with your camera.

 

[mommyflower]

Hi! I just got the Canon A70 about a month ago. According to my manual at the highest quality you can get 76 pictures with a 128M and 154 pictures with a 256M. Of course that doesn't include the little videos. We will be trying the camera out in disney in just three weeks. We will be taking our laptop as well. Right now I only have a 256M card, but I plan to get at least one more. That way if I run out of room I have an extra, but also if something were to happen to the other I will have a back up.

So far I really like the Canon A70. It's a great camera. If you have any questions about it feel free to ask. I can try to answer them. Good luck!

 

[DisneyVillain]

"128 MB CF Card : 200 pictures at 1600x1200 resolution
256 MB CF Card : 400 pictures at 1600x1200 resolution
512 MB CF Card : ~ 800 pictures at 1600x1200 resolution "

1600x1200 is ~2mp.