Digital Camers WRT: Smart Media vs. CF media

[Mark J. Dulcey]

Jerry Feldman wrote:
> I will be purchasing a new Digital Camera before this summer rolls around. 
> While I have not decided on any one brand, friends have recommended both Olympus, which 
> uses Smart Media, and HP Photosmart which uses compact flash. I have decided against Sony, 
> although it uses diskettes. 
> 
> I am leaning toward CF because my IPaQ has a CF sleeve, not that it makes much of a 
> difference. My laptop runs Linux, and I will be taking that with me, so I do want to be able to at 
> least look at and possibly download the pictures onto the laptop. 
> 
> So, one question is, how compatable are these cameras with Linux when downloading via USB? 

If you go with the CF camera, you have another option for getting the 
pictures out: put the CF card in a CF-PCMCIA adapter, and read the card 
like a PCMCIA hard disk. That's the fastest method of all, though you do 
have to pop out the memory card. You should be able to put it in the 
iPaq and read it like a disk.

So thats one vote for CF rather than SmartMedia. I like the Nikon 
cameras, by the way, though they may be out of the price class you're 
looking at.