jps246's Full Review: Olympus 128mb Smart Media Card
If you any sort of devices that need memory cards, then you probably already know that you want to get the biggest memory cards that you can afford. Olympus, with their 128-megabyte SmartMedia card offers just that for the SmartMedia crowd.
I have two digital cameras, and both use the SmartMedia format for image storage. For my older camera, the 64-megabyte and even the 16-megabyte SmartMedia cards were sufficient for most of my picture taking.
Once I moved up to a 4 mega-pixel camera, it was pretty obvious that neither of these sized memory cards were sufficient. For full resolution RAW images with a 4 mega-pixel camera, each image is about 10 to 12 megabytes in size. So with a 64-megabyte card, you’ve only got space for five images at the moment and space for only one shot on a 16-megabyte card. I rarely shoot in RAW mode, but even a high resolution JPG (one you might take for an 8x10 enlargement print) will run anywhere from 5 to 10 megabytes depending upon the quality and type of image you are capturing.
You can quickly see that having 128-megabyte SmartMedia cards is a requirement for anyone who is looking to use today’s higher resolution digital cameras that take SmartMedia cards.
What does it hold?
With my 4 mega-pixel camera in RAW mode, a 128-megabyte SmartMedia card would hold about 11 to 13 images. In the various other resolutions, I can hold anywhere from 60 up to several hundred photos.
The speed of the recording to the memory card is good. In the new digital camera, the lag time is significantly less than it had been in the older camera (probably due as much to the new electronics in the new camera as due to the memory card), even though the file sizes were larger. My best guess on saving speed would be about 5 seconds for a RAW image and 2 to 3 seconds in higher resolutions. Low resolutions are almost instantaneous. Downloads from the card to a computer are quick and snappy but limited in speed by whatever method you are using to download the photos.
SmartMedia cards are also be used in MP3 players and other devices that have a SmartMedia slot for their storage. At an average of 7 megabytes per MP3, you’d be able to fit about 18 songs (roughly a single CD’s worth) on a single 128-megabyte chip.
SmartMedia cards are also fairly rugged and very easy to transport and carry. The card itself is a little over an inch long and under an inch wide and weighs almost nothing. I’ve been working with them for over four years in various incarnations and sizes. I have never had a single one break or stop functioning on me. The SmartMedia cards have bounced around my backpack several times in some rainy and wet hikes, and sat in my car in the sun a few times and have come out no worse for the wear.
The Olympus SmartMedia line also offers the chance to take “panorama pictures” when you are using an Olympus SmartMedia card and an Olympus Camera. I’ve never used the option because I find it easier to stitch photos together in Photoshop or in other photo-editing programs. Though some people will probably find this feature nifty.
Well?
SmartMedia is one of the more limited flash memory cards on the market today and it stands to reason that if you have devices that use it, you should be picking up as many of the 128-megabyte cards as you can as the prices continue to come down because you won’t find anything larger than 128-megabyte in SmartMedia.
Olympus, with its 128-megabyte SmartMedia card, has made a reasonably priced card that is well worth what you pay for it. And especially now with the memory prices so low and chips more like candy than anything else, there is really no good excuse for not picking up several extra cards for your SmartMedia devices.
128 MB SmartMedia card for use with digital cameras, MP3 players, and other digital devices Olympus SmartMedia memory cards also make panorama picture...More at Amazon Marketplace
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