Rating: 
Summary: How many pictures will it store?
Review: How many pictures will it store? It is the most commonly asked question from digital camera enthusiast but usually the question that is the most difficult to get a straight answer about. Well, considering I worked in the memory industry for over 7 years I can help clarify this perplexing question and do so unbiased as I have since changed industries.
The SanDisk SDCFH-512-901 512MB Ultra II CompactFlash Card, like most 512MB cards, will store on average 568 pictures when used with a 2 megapixel camera, 426 images when used with a 3 megapixel camera, 256 pictures when used with a 4 megapixel camera, 204 images when used with a 5 megapixel camera, and 160 pictures when used with a 6 megapixel camera. These numbers are based off the assumption that you are going to shoot your images at the highest quality JPEG setting available for the camera and understand that they are estimates and may be off by as much as 10 percent due to numerous factors including the complexity of the scene being shot and the compression algorithm used by your specific camera.
I truly hope this review was helpful to you in determining whether this 512MB card is the right capacity for your specific needs.
Rating: 
Summary: Please match card to camera for best performance
Review: At least one poster indicated that the card in question performed horribly on their Nikon camera. There are compatibility issues (still) between various camera makes and the various compact flash cards and their controllers. Go to http://www.robgalbraith.com and check out the flash speed tests. They are done with about a dozen of the most popular camera types, and you will see that it is a waste of money to get an ultra-fast CF card, if your camera is not built to use it properly. i.e., a fast CF card will not make a slow camera any faster.Nikon, for instance, has engineered their cameras around Lexar cards, and I've had good success with those cards in my Coolpix 4500. On the other hand, when I tried a Sandisk Ultra (rated fastest in those days) it was slower than the 12X Lexars on that camera. Nikon now also supports Lexar's proprietary Write Acceleration (WA) technology, but only on more recent, up-scale cameras. Again, a waste of money to buy a 40x WA Lexar card if the camera doesn't make any use of it. At least Nikon publishes a list of tested cards in the back of their camera manuals (unlike Canon). You can also get info on recently tested cards on the Nikon camera tech site. You should be able to extrapolate to larger size cards from there, but I wouldn't stray from the manufacturers listed there, unless you get a chance to actually check out a card in your camera in a camera store. Don't forget to be nice to the sales folks there, and buy something there, for their time and trouble, instead of saying, "Cool, now I can order this from Amazon!" After all, what good does it do you to save a few bucks on an initial CF purchase, if it doesn't do what you want? Kind of an expensive keychain charm, if you ask me. I recently got a Canon EOS 300D, and was dismayed to find that Canon support wouldn't tell me what speed or manufacturer of card to use with the camera (I suppose the engineering department used core memory for their tests, for all I know). Since I bought a Digital Rebel before any flash tests with that camera appeared on http://www.robgalbraith.com, I was pioneering. I subsequently discovered that Canon was selling Simpletech 10x cards on their web site as 300D accessories (imagine that 8-), so I ordered a couple from Amazon (*much* better price 8-), and have been happy with them. Not the fastest in the world, but the price was right, and they work OK with camera. Since then, I've seen the review on http://www.robgalbraith.com (as of 11/28/2003, they had tested with 16 different cameras -- also check out an older survey at http://www.dpreview.com, that may cover your camera), with the Sandisk Extreme topping out the list for the 300D. I ended up here, looking for Extremes, but Amazon doesn't seem to be carrying any. 8-( Sandisk Ultra II's and the "new" Ultra (see the robgalbraith article) rated very closely to the Extreme, though. If you have a Digital Rebel (EOS 300D), the Ultra II 512MB should work fine for you. Also, to all those folks that say you can get 100+ photos on a 512MB card, you obviously haven't discovered the benefits of shooting in RAW mode. Of course, if you shoot in RAW, you can't squeeze quite as many shots on a card (about 64, +/-) but it's still about the equivalent of two rolls of film, which is OK in my book. If you do shoot RAW, do yourself a favor and check out Capture One DSLR Digital Rebel edition (http://www.pictureflow.com/). It's cheap ($49), fast (instant preview of your changes, and you can queue RAW conversions for background processing), and will make working with RAW photos a pleasure. Nothing like being able to fix an exposure problem +/- 2 stops *after* you shoot it, and the 'click here' color balance correction is golden. A RAW file is a lossless compression with 12-bits of data, so if you convert to 16-bit TIFF, you can edit to your heart's content without seriously degrading the image (unlike 8-bit JPEG). If you have a 300D, you've bought a first-rate sensor and electronics (same as the more-expensive 10D). Don't cripple it by shooting JPEGs. Have fun, and explore what your camera can do.
Rating:
Summary: Great card!
Review: Bought one of these cards and I love it. I have a Canon 300d/Digital Rebel. I originally used a Canon 32MB card which performed horribly. It would take on average 10 seconds to write one JPG at the highest resolution. With the 512MB Ultra II card it takes from 1-2 seconds to write the same image. It also allows you to shoot continuous shots longer. With 6+ Megapixels--I think the 512MB card is the perfect size for a full day of shooting. I can get about 165-170 shots on a card. I am glad I did not get the 256MB card. Lastly, it also allows quicker image previewing from the camera, flipping between images is so so much faster. I think the extra money for this card is well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Fast !!!
Review: G'day from down under... Bought this Card from Amazon recently and it is fast! Writes to memory in about 1.5sec at 6.3mp. Not so good in the nikon 54-5700s. I use it in my Canon 300eos digital and there's no problems at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Ultra II is NOT faster than Lexar 12X
Review: I bought a 512mb Ultra II and tested it against my Lexar 12X and a Viking 256mb (no X rating, but similar to the Lexar). In my Canon 10D the Ultra II was only 10% faster, and that was as good as it got. Rob Galbraith's test showed it to be 30% faster (I did the same test he did).
I tested it in a SanDisk USB 2.0 reader hooked up to my desktop (Windows XP, Athlon 2800) and in a Delkin CardBus 32 PCMCIA Adapter (which is 5X faster than my old PCMCIA adapter - buy this!)in my laptop. The Lexar 12X was 17% faster at its worst, and 56% faster at its best! So is this the same card Rob tested, or are they putting Ultra II stickers on 12X cards?
I called SanDisk tech support. They were very nice and exchanged my card for a new one. But the new one tested the same.
Rating: 
Summary: Totally disappointed
Review: I brought the card brand new, used it less than 5 times and it died during my own wedding.
To make it even worse, pictures were not recoverable.
My tips:
*Think twice when buying this card
*Buy couple small cards (say 256Mb)instead of one big card.
Rating:
Summary: Fastest thing I've got
Review: I did an informal speed comparison between several storage cards in an olympus c8080wz. The Ultra II was the fastest, followed by the Olympus 32MB xD card that came with the camera, then a 128MB SanDisk Ultra (not Ultra II) card, then Lexar (8x speed rating) 16MB, then SanDisk 128MB (no fancy speed qualifiers).
I timed Raw images shot handheld, with one hand holding the camera and one hand running a stopwatch, so this isn't a super-duper scientific experiment. For a raw image, the SanDisk U2CF ran about 14+ seconds, while the UCF and xD ran 15+ seconds. Not a huge difference for the timing method. For those of you wondering about the value of higher speed CF, the unrated SanDisk ran 24 seconds per frame, and the Lexar 8x was in the 17 second range.
As someone with more money than skill as a photographer, the U2CF speed is worth the extra.
Raw not your thing? I ran a 5-shot high-speed continuous burst -- same scene, same camera as above -- duration is time from half-pushed button being fully pushed (5 burst frames captured before camera pauses) for display to indicate room for one more photo (AF and exposure time excluded): The U2CF ran about 8.9 seconds, the UCF ran 9.3, the xD ran 9.1, then Lexar about 9.4, and the unrated SanDisk ran 10.4. Less than 2 seconds difference -- again, not a huge difference, but still fairly repeatable in my testing.
Your mileage will vary depending on scene content, in-camera image processing, shooting mode, and camera model.
Why not 5 stars? You can blame the camera -- I just want more speed.
Rating:
Summary: 31% faster than card that comes with Canon Powershot S400
Review: I did high-speed continuous shooting with the Canon Powershot S400 with both this card and the card that came with the camera. The card that came with it did 10 pictures in 22 seconds and this card did 10 pictures in 15 seconds. A card doesn't have to do much else. I have not yet used it extensively but I don't know of other likely problems other than slow writing speeds.
Rating:
Summary: Great card, much faster than normal SanDisk
Review: I have a 512 MB SanDisk Ultra II, and a 256 MB SanDisk (normal). I compared the read/write speeds using a Firewire Delkin DDREADER 24 Compact Flash card reader. I copied the files to the CF card then copied them back to the HD to test the read and write speeds. Here are the results.
Files: 75, Total Size: 236.5 MB. These were all jpg's from a 6 MP camera.
Ultra II card: Write time: 1 min 5 seconds, Read Time: 54 Seconds.
Normal card: Write time: 2 min 1 second, Read Time 1 min 11 seconds.
The write speed for the Ultra II was about twice as fast as the normal card, and the read just slightly faster. If your camera can benefit from the extra speed; it is deffinitely worth buying the Ultra II over the regular. I would also like to add, you won't get that fast of a transfer speed over USB 1.1 because it is slower than the card is capable. You should use a USB 2.0 or Firewire connection for optimal performance.
Rating:
Summary: can't be worse
Review: I have my nikon coolpix 5400, it comes with a start memory card from lexar media 8X (1.2M/s) speed, which has about 2 seconds delay on each shot. I bought this sandisk ultra II as it claims 9M/s writing speed and 10M/s reading. However, it tooks about 4~5 seconds for each shot EVERY TIME!!. I can't believe how they can put such brag in their ad...
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