compact flash & sdhc cards

[duncan22]

Some of the more recent Canon SLR models now use sd memory cards rather than Compact flash cards.
What is the reason for this ? is it just that the sd cards are smaller & safer, in that there are no pins to get bent in the camera or is there some other reason(s)

Just curious

[PaulMontgomery]

I would guess at size. With the trend being to cram more and more into a smaller space, the hole required for a CF card is quite big.

[cosmicma]

i would aggree with the above and maybe it's cheaper to manufacture the card slot keeping the costs down on the budget range

i did hear a rumour when the sd card was first introduced to the canon 450d that canon was getting a reasonable amount of cameras back with bent pins and decided to use SD cards to try to limit this but i think the decision would have been down to cost

[chris-p]

There are several reasons for it.

One is size, as mentioned above.

Another is that lots of compact users trading up will have SD cards already (although SD slots are more common on higher end SLRs now, they started on the entry level ones).

There is also the fact that SD is now a faster and more stable format than it used to be and is more cost efficient that CF cards (it's cheaper to make every day SD cards than CF ones).

With the advent of SDHC technology, SD can finally support much capacities. This was a major factor holding SD cards back.

SD cards draw less charge from the camera than CF cards do.

They only use a 9-pin interface (CF uses 50-pin) which, as mentioned above, makes it harder to damage the pins.

SD also has a hardware encryption system (although I've never seen anything at all that uses it) hence the "Secure" digital!