By Jim Hawk
Special to the Washington Post

October 2, 1998

Today's new digital cameras work just like film cameras, but without the hassle of getting film developed. Unfortunately -- just like film cameras -- you still have to deal with issues of "film" capacity and quality, not to mention a format dilemma with no real parallel in analog photography.

The root of the problem is an old-fashioned standards war. Companies like Olympus, Toshiba, and Fuji use the "SmartMedia" standard -- a thin card about the size and shape of a plate of dental X-ray film -- but just about everyone else, including Kodak, Nikon and Canon, employs "CompactFlash" memory cards, which are thicker than SmartMedia cards but otherwise the same size.

Both varieties of these matchbook-sized cards slide into a digital camera. SmartMedia cards max out at 16 megabytes of storage, while CompactFlash cards go up to 64 megs, enough for over a hundred highest quality photos (a high-resolution digital camera commonly uses about half a megabyte for each highest-quality picture). Be wary of compatibility issues; Olympus's new 16-meg SmartMedia card only works in its newest cameras.

On cost grounds, though, SmartMedia has the edge at the low end -- an 8 megabyte SmartMedia card sells for about $28, compared to $40 for a same-capacity CompactFlash card. CompactFlash looks better when you move up the food chain: A 45-meg card goes for $160, the same cost-per-megabyte as the 8-meg SmartMedia card. (Our price estimates come from Internet discounters like Buycomp.com) Both types of memory cards cost about half what they did a year ago, with further declines in sight.

Note that digital "film" can get wiped out by static electricity or low battery power. Petting the cat while handling a memory card is a recipe for disaster (the exposed electrical contacts on SmartMedia cards can make them especially vulnerable). Both kinds of chips can also trip up when a camera's batteries go low: Power-hungry digital cameras can drain batteries so fast that the last picture taken sometimes is only partially saved, or not at all.

A further oddity in this field is how some memory cards save pictures faster than others, a speed difference of as much as eight seconds per shot. A quick comparison of CompactFlash cards on a Nikon Coolpix 900 camera showed a definite speed difference, with Lexar and MicroTech cards leading the pack, followed by SanDisk, Kingston and Viking.

But with all this uncertainty about standards and performance, at least one thing in this new digital-photography field is just like the old analog days. No matter how much film you carry, it's never quite enough for the seven-day vacation.