[mr cat]

hi - just bought a new canon 400D (still waiting for my CF card tho!) - and with my panasonic dmc-fz7 I used a card reader to transfer my pics from my camera to laptop (was much, much faster than connecting my camera to laptop) - is it the same case with CF cards..?
if so, can you recommend a good cheap CF card reader..?

cheers

[orangepeel]

It's likely your pany was USB 1.1

Just make sure any new card reader is USB 2 and you'll be fine. Although you should note your 400D is USB 2 - making the card reader a bit uncessary...

[sejanus]

There's good news and there's bad news here.

The good news is that a card reader does seem to be faster, going by my experience with Canon, Nikon, Olympus and Sony cameras. The bad news is that 'faster', in this context, means 'a little less slow than treacle running off your spoon', as opposed to lightning quick.

I use card readers to reduce the need to keep lots of different cables around. (How can they call USB a 'standard' when there are five different plugs in use?)

I'd advise against any reader that doesn't enclose at least half of the length of the card. The CF connector has exposed, thin wire terminals that have to slot into the card socket. To avoid bending any, you really need a superstructure that guides the card squarely on to the plug. I have to say that the Jessops and similar multicard readers implement the CF socket very poorly in this respect and I'd avoid them for this reason.

[brian wright22]

Hi Mr Cat ,You may like to look into a card reader that plugs into the spare Floppy drive space, if you don't have a spare floppy space then you may have to use one of the spaces that are left empty for an additional CD or DVD recorder,most computers will have one.Choose a card reader that caters for every present card, then you will be future proof. The only snag with this method I have suggested is that you have to take the computer sides off to slide in the Card reader and plug the usb lead into one of the usb internal header sockets. But it does keep your desktop tidy.
PC World or Dabs can supply an internal card reader for about £18 or less

Regards Brian

[Dave Canon]

Hi, I do not use a card reader myself. I have a USB 2 cable which I connect to my Canon EOS 20D. The speed is the same as via a USB 2 card reader. I use Canon's EOS Viewer Utility to move the pics from the Camera to my hard drive (all my files are RAW).

This turns out to be even more convenient as My Epson P2000 Viewer/Storage device can be connected via the same cable and the pics also moved using the Canon EOS Viewer Utility.

I also have a Canon Ixus 55 which can be connected via the same cable and pics read straight into Adobe Bridge or to my hard drive.

Using a Card reader would be a lot of hassle for me and thus slower.