Larger flash memory cards equals more photos without having to upload to your desktop often. Why did Nikon not choose to design the new Nikon 990 with a II flash memory slot?

-- Alec Thomas (alec@hotmail.com), March 17, 2000

Answers

I have obviously heard this question a few times.

For the record 192 MB Type I cards will soon be available with 256 MB and possibly 512 MB Cards will be available in 2000 and 2001. Even for those who want to store only TIFF-realize that like with film- it's always safest to bridge your work across a number of rolls of film or in this case memory cards or digital film-perchance you lose one roll or one card (which is tragic in itself) you don't lose all of your work. I rotate through 3 cards in a typical shoot.

The simplest technical answer has to do with heat and power management.

Excepting that a MicroDrive(TM) can consume up to 8x more power than a solid state flash card (moving parts) according to one CompactFlash card manufacturer (and seems to be the case based on the specs of each)it creates a great deal of heat-to the point that I have pulled drives out that almost burned my fingertips-from a laptop computer PC Card slot.

Now that is the case with most PC cards I have used-but when you realize how tightly layered PC Boards are in any consumer digital camera is today (despite all the new ASIC's which lower chip counts) you will also realize that you cannot safely dissipate much of the heat which any Type II device generates. The camera and circuit life is shortened-just the physics.

In terms of power, Type II CF Memory Cards typically have 50% more chips in their design-a daughterboard-which adds a 50% EXTRA power draw-and lower battery life.

Battery life, heat and life of your product are serious concerns on our part-and thus type II cards are not supported.

Michael

-- Mike Rubin, Product Marketing Manager Nikon (web@imaging-resource.com), March 22, 2000.

I personally do not tolerate any compression artifacts whatsoever in my images, especially as a lot of them are often heavily post-processed which makes any artifacting much more apparent. A camera offering an uncompressed mode is therefore essential - the 990 sounds absolutely perfect for quality, control and features, but without Microdrive compatibility, uncompressed images (taking up to 10meg apparently) are a waste of time.

Only thing stopping me from jumping at the (rather gorgeous) 990...

-- M.Davis (M@r-i-l.net), March 18, 2000.

I must disagree with Mr. Rubin's explanation to the question on the lack of Type II support in the Nikon 990. I think Mr. Rubin was doing a lot of backpedaling on this issue. First of all, his claim that it is better to have multiple smaller storage devices than one large one incase something goes wrong and the medium fails, is a questionable argument. I maintain that it is more probable to miss out on one of life's "precious moments" by either not having enough storage space or else while fiddeling with the darn thing, trying to change flash cards mid shoot, than by a possible Microdrive failure. The cost/megabyte of storage is a lot cheaper for a Microdrive than a CF card. Secondly, he claims that the battery usage goes up by 50% when using the Microdrive. This is just plain NOT TRUE. By Canon's own estimate (Microdrive and S10) the usage is more on the order of 20- 25% but this also depends a lot on using other battery drain features such as the LCD and flash. In my own experience, I have not noticed any great disadvantage (power-wise) while using the Microdrive. Thirdly, Mr Rubin claims that the Microdrive produces unacceptable amounts of heat which will shorten the life of the electronics and hence the camera. This again is misinformation! I have been using the Microdrive in my Canon S10 for nearly 6 months without noticing any heat build-up. I have also used the drive in my PC cardreader as well as my laptop to transfer images, without any heat build-up. I have had CF type I cards warming up a lot more than the Microdrive does. The real reason why Nikon did not include Microdrive support in the 990 has probably more to do with licencing agreements than any desire on Nikon's part to save us form a "spontaneous combustion" of their Coolpix 990 camera! After all, Mr. Rubin's arguments did not stop them from incorporating the Microdrive support in their Professional Nikon D1 camera. To quote Mr. Rubin, "Battery life, heat and life of your product are serious concerns on our part-and thus type II cards are not supported." I guess they did not extend these concerns to their $5000 pro camera. Peter Vaktor M.D.

-- Peter Vaktor (pvak@cam.org), March 29, 2000.