This is a summary of a survey of the Olympus C5050 write speeds to different memory cards compiled by Jens Birch. Most of the write speeds were kindly measured and reported to me by the members of the Olympus 4040 and 5050 discussion forum. Some write speeds could be found in the archives of that discussion forum and many data points were supplied by Andrzej Wrotniak.

The tests were made according to Andrzej Wrotniak's method in the following way:

• The camera was set in manual focus mode, with a short shutter time, and the flash disabled.
• The memory card to be tested was selected.
• The card was formatted in the camera.
• The camera was set to save RAW pictures (gives an Olympus Raw Format (.orf)  file with a size of 7.292 MB).
• Pictures were taken and the write times were measured manually with a stopwatch, starting immediately after the exposure (shutter sound) and ending when the "busy" red light went off.
• At least three measurements were made and the average time was calculated.

Explanation of the tables

• Card Type: CF=Compact Flash, CF II=Compact Flash type II, xD=Extreme Digital, SM=Smart Media
• Brand and Model as written on the cards
• Size in MegaBytes
• Write speed: Measured as described above. Time values were rounded up to closest 0.1 second except for a few cases where timing devices with only 1 second accuracy readings were used. In those cases the write speed was rounded up to the closest whole second and no decimals are given in the tables. It should be noted that a considerable "operator" dependent error is present in these measurements. The measurements may deviate by approximately ±0.5 second depending on exactly how the measurer interpreted the instructions for the tests.
• Firmware: The firmware version of the camera used to do the test as determined from  the EXIF data in a picture taken with the camera.
• Reference:
• (a) Response to message #13980 in the Yahoo Olympus4040_5050 discussion forum
• (b) Reports in earlier posts to the Yahoo Olympus4040_5050 discussion forum
• (c) Earlier data obtained by Andrzej Wrotniak and presented at his web page

Any comments or questions can be mailed to me.
 

Results, sorted by write time

I thank all those in the Yahoo Olympus4040_5050 forum who have contributed to this test survey and also those who have encouraged me to carry it through. Furthermore, I express my thanks to Andrzej Wrotniak who gave his permission to include his data in this work.
 

Linköping 17/8 2003
Jens Birch