I see Nikon has now launched the D80 - its replacement for the much loved D70. Reading the specs I think they have dropped a major clanger!!! They have fitted it with SD rather than compact flash. This is really going to p*ss off the Nikon community! The D70 takes compact flash so if you have spend lots of doe on these cards then you are going to be mighty annoyed as this will not be a viable upgrade option. I guess Nikon are aiming at D50 users, but in my opinion they have got this very wrong!!

BTW I am a Canon user so it does not affect me but I have friends who are D70 owners who are not impresseded. It means that they will need to look at the D200 instead.

JD

I thought about it for a moment, and realized, in the big picture, this is a lot less of a detractor than you might think.

I too, am a Canon shooter, so I have no real stake in the game.

I recall my initial reaction when I recently bought my first SD camera, a Panasonic LX1. I paniced because I had to support the SD format. Then I got over it. I had to have a small point-and-shoot with a decent lens and RAW. There is no alternative. So I bought a few cards and moved on. I never think about it any more.

Funny thing. A few month ago I got a newly-released Dell E1505 laptop for field use. It has a built in card reader (but no PCIMIA card support). I was anxious to try out this hi-speed way of downloading cards without having to carry a card reader - SURPRISE - CF is not supported, only SD.

Could it be SD is the way of the future?

I expect all future Canon releases to have both CF and SD in a transitional offering. (Doesn't the 1 Series already have dual slots?) If so, one should strongly consider gravitating towards SD as it appears to be the trend.

Why is it that Canon users seem to always have to comment on Nikon announcements? I find this amusing. Sense of envy perhaps? <wide grins>

The D80 is very obviously a D50 upgrade. If you are that tied to CF cards then the D200 is a nice option if you have a D70/s and want to move up. The D80 is not that compelling an improvement over the D70 barring the few extra pixels.

Some of the more educated opinions is that the D50 will be replaced by an even lower end D40 in the not too distant future.

And when the 22 megapixel full-sensor D3X hits, look out! ;-)

Hey...it's the sensei behind the sensor that really counts.

I run from such immaturity - see ya!

Full frame?

I think that unless you are a pro with a large hoard of cards, then it won't matter. In the UK a 2GB SD card costs about £20, which is diddly squat compared to the cost of the camera.

Leif

Andrew,
in the May issue of the German magazine ColorfFoto, Page 11 it states that Mr. Yasuo Baba, Manager Professional Services Nikon GmbH says in an interview that in next 18 to 24 months will deliver a DSLR with full format sensor!!!!
Henk

18-24 months.... that's quick!

It's no wondewr that BJL has disappeared form this forum. No doubt due to a red face .

When a body costs $999 USD and two 2gig SD cards are under $100 total I think the storage format is a moot point. Yet another reason I think the whole CF/SD issue is silly is this - if both were available 10 years ago which would you design around? My guess is that between form factors, everything else being equal, you'd take the smaller. And between reliability, everything else being equal, you'd take the more reliable. And between speed, everything else being equal, you'd take the fastest. Well, SD is smaller, more reliable and faster. So everything else isn't equal as SD is better in every way ... well, except that it wasn't first.

Peace,

Todd Warnke

On the other hand, memory cards as a class, whatever the type, are not big or heavy or unreliable. I've never had any problems at all with any of my 1/2 dozen or so cards. I'm still using the first flash card I bought for my D60, an IBM 1GB type ll.

I've seen a report on the net of a photographer assigned the job of photographing the demolition of a building. He placed the camera on a tripod close (too close as it transpired) to the building. Triggered the exposure by wireless remote and caught the debris flying towards the camera. The debris destroyed the camera. The Sandisk flash card was discovered some distance away on the ground.

All images were recovered perfectly.

Pretty expensive shot, I'd say.

Eric

I agree with your comment. IMO the original post is little more than a dig at Nikon by someone who does not even use Nikon. It gets tiresome reading pointless snipes from Canon users. It's far more interesting to take photos.

Leif

I thought that claim was debunked.

I wonder what sort of write speeds you would get with one of these:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...C=SEO&U=strat15

Because, if you were *really* worried about SD cards replacing CF cards in the future, you could just get one of the converters, and then buy SD cards from now on....

That is one of the rumours at present.

This might not be Nikon's intent. The D80 might well be the upgrade path from the D50, and a new D90 might be in the wings later in September as a D70 successor (Photokina announcement...or is this PMA...I get confused which is which).

Which would explain the SD versus CF card move.

I think this really quite simple. It's about upgrade paths and staying on the trend curve.

I suspect Nikon is just a bit ahead of the curve on this one. I am sure that Canon will also do the same now the SDHC standard has been agreed and capacity/price ratio, the last real advantage CF cards had over SD is no longer an issue.

Out of interest I checked the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II the only DSLR to my knowledge with both CF and SD slots. The SanDisk Extreme III 1GB SD is faster than the SanDisk Extreme IV 2GB CF Card (There was no 1GB version to compare, I am aware that there is a marginal drop off in write speed as the capacity gets bigger)*

Apple also took the decision to introduce an express card slot on the new Macbooks which could only hold an SD card reader and not a CF one. This is inline with the Windows machines from Dell and HP who are shipping SD card slots on laptops. The writing is on the wall for CF imo.

Specifically in relation to the Nikon lineup this move makes sense imo. The D50 uses SD cards and so does it's bigger brother the D80. This makes the upgrade from point and shoot > basic DSLR (D50) > Serious amateur (D80) a seamless one with regard to storage. This gives a point and shoot upgrader one more reason to choose a Nikon product.

Those people with a D70/D70s are more likely to head towards a D200 rather than the D80 in any case. At this price level, I agree that the cost of purchasing storage cards is a moot point.

My own 2 cents worth says that Nikon will not launch a D90 but rather a D40 to replace the D50 and clearly differentiate it from the D80.


* Witite speeds from http://robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-7344 for RAW images.

CF cards

SanDisk Extreme IV 2GB 8.010MB/sec
SanDisk Extreme III 1GB 7.878MB/sec

SD Cards

SanDisk Extreme III 1GB 9.023MB/sec

Health warning. I am a Nikon user who switched this year from a Canon system.