The Flash Menagerie

Continued from page 1

As price per megabyte comes down, standardization arguably matters less. Right now, you can get 256-megabyte SD or CF cards for well under $100. But each image produced by the newest 6-megapixel cameras will swallow 18 MB, so the ideal card size requires more megabytes, negating the drop in per-megabyte price. Also, when I'm dropping off a card at the store to have an image printed, I'd rather leave behind a small, cheap old card than a 256 MB or 1-GB unit. If I standardize on one card type, I can more easily use my old cards for this purpose, even after I upgrade to more capacious cards for new cameras.