By Tan Chong Yaw

SALES of Compact Flash (CF) memory cards have fallen off a cliff - plummeting almost 80 per cent in the last three years.

However, CF cards will survive, primarily because top-end digital SLRs (DSLRs) that cost more than $2,500 still demand their use.

CF cards, matchbox-sized, held 11 per cent of the market share of memory cards in 2006. Its share plunged to less than 4 per cent last year, said research firm GfK Asia.

When the CF card first made its debut in 1994, it had a wow factor: It was three times smaller than the PC cards used then but with a 2MB capacity, it could hold over 40 0.3-megapixel photos.

Not bad, considering a bigger 1.44MB, 3.5-inch floppy disk then stored less than 35 photos.

The erosion of its ground began four years later when Sony brought out its Memory Stick (MS) and when the Secure Digital (SD) card made its debut in 2001. The two cards also have variants - like the microSD and Memory Stick Pro Duo (MSPD).

As these cards were smaller - the SD card, for instance, was the size of a postage stamp - they attracted camera makers keen to make ever smaller and lighter cameras that were in demand.

No surprises then that, as of last year, SD cards, MSs and their variants accounted for 90 per cent of all memory cards sold.

No compact camera today uses a CF card, while most DSLRs and even memory-gobbling, high-definition camcorders use SD cards or MSPDs.

Niche demand

So where does the CF card stand? Most likely, it will sit in the slots of high-end DSLRs. The latest examples are Canon's EOS-1D Mark IV ($7,299) and the Nikon D3s ($7,888) released last year.

Camera makers with their own card designs - like Sony's MS and Olympus's xD card - also include a CF slot in their top DSLR models.

Why is that?

CF cards are tougher, faster and boast higher capacities - qualities that professional photographers want.

For this group of people, the large size of a CF card is a plus.

'CF cards have more real estate to accommodate higher capacities,' said memory card maker SanDisk's senior manager Cheah Hon Wai.

Better performance

The largest CF card available is 64GB, twice that of the largest SD card here.

Read and write speeds are also better.

CF cards can hit top speeds of 90MBps, which is three times that of the fastest SD card.

As the race for higher capacities rages on, it is likely that usage will be split between small cards like the SD for most models and CF cards for professional gear.

SD cards have three current standards: SD with a 2GB maximum, SDHC at 32GB and the new SDXC at 2TB.

A new CF standard announced last month by the CompactFlash Association is aimed at DSLRs and high-speed professional camcorders.

Its maximum is 144 petabytes (PB). That is the capacity of 72,000 2TB hard disk drives. If these were laid flat, they would cover 21/2 basketball courts.

Top that, SD cards.

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