Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is a high-quality product aimed at the photography professional or serious amateur. It's got the high capacity and the speed to work with high-end digital cameras, featuring 40x access (rated just like a CD-ROM, each 1x is 150K/second throughput) and WA (Write Acceleration) technology.
The card's capacity from my Canon 10D is about 200 images, taken at Large-Fine settings (3072 x 2048). That's more than ample for most users; Lexar makes a 1GB version too if that's not enough. The 10D can burst up to 9 images to its internal memory before it has to write them to the CF. When I take 9 in a row (approx. 3 seconds), my camera is busy for another couple of seconds before I can burst another 9. 9 images in 5 seconds is a pretty good rate; I'd challenge a film camera to do better.
What really makes the card top notch is what comes with it. Included in the pack is a USB reader (compatible with any USB-enabled CF card) and Lexar's ImageRestore software (this version is only compatible with Lexar media, they sell a $40 retail version that is compatible with non-Lexar cards). Make sure you copy the setup program from the CF card to your computer when you first get it. The ImageRestore program will examine the memory in the card for image formats (JPG and TIFF, I believe; I don't think it can work with raw formats) and put them on your computer's hard drive. This proved to be a day-saver when I accidentally deleted some images (*thought* I was just clearing the DPOF settings...).
If you do happen to delete some images, stop taking pictures immediately! (Deletion doesn't remove the data, it just marks the space that it occupies in the card as available--if you keep taking pictures you could be overwriting the space that still has your image data.) Run the ImageRestore program and it will put all images that it finds in a directory that you can browse. It would be nice if it either didn't put the non-deleted images on your hard drive or restored images that you selected to the CF card, but I'm happy enough to get the pictures back that it's a minor nitpick at best.
Lexar also has a live technical support option on their website that was extremely helpful. I was not able to get the ImageRestore program to find the card and got on the support chat. The problem was that the card and reader were installed using the Windows-provided USB Mass Storage Device drivers. Once the tech support person told me that this had to be changed to the Lexar-provided JumpShot device driver (open Device Manager, right-click on USB Mass Storage Device, Properties, Driver tab, Update Driver..., Next, Display a list of known drivers..., choose the JumpShot driver, then finish the wizard--you'll have to confirm that you really want to install an unsigned driver), it worked great.
I've used this card in my camera, a PCMCIA adapter, the included USB adapter, and my HP Photosmart printer, and had no compatibility or other problems.
All in all, this is a good choice for a high-speed, high-capacity CF card. When considered that it comes with a reader and the ImageRestore software, and in light of my excellent experience with their tech support, I will definitely recommend Lexar.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Lexar Media 512 MB 40X CompactFlash Pro
For years, Lexar Media has always supplied the fastest speed-rated CompactFlash (CF) cards to professional photographers meeting their most demanding needs for performance and reliability. With the introduction of Write Acceleration (WA) technology, Lexar Media continues to innovate in high-performance digital media.Write Acceleration technology is unique in that it is enabled by two components; one resides in the camera firmware and the other in the CF card firmware. When a WA enabled camera detects a WA enabled card the two are able to transfer data with less overhead, improving the throughput and taking greater advantage of the card's 24x (3.6 MB/s) write speed.
Click here for more information about Lexar Media 512 MB 40X CompactFlash Pro
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