I have a Sony DCS-F828 which accepts memory sticks and CF (including microdrives). What of these options would you suggest for situations like Amersfoort meet (i.e. several gigs worth of images expected, even more if one uses VGA@30fps clip capability, and trying to avoid lugging the laptop)?

Microdrives seem to be significantly cheaper than CF (and especially than MS). Are they much more fragile (because of moving parts?). Also, is their writing speed comparable to fast CFs? (I don't generally shoot lots of bursts, but manual says that not all storage supports full speed clips - for example, 'ordinary' (as opposed to Pro) sticks don't.)

TIA

I killed one Microdrive, specifically by dropping my old camera. Solid state cards are cheap enough that it's hard to justify the Microdrives any more. Right now, I've got two 1GB CF cards. The only time that those weren't enough, in a single day, was when I was the "official" photographer at a friend's wedding. I made it through most of the day's activities before running out, and then I had to spend 30 minutes with my laptop emptying out the cards.

Microdrives are usually almost as fast as other CF cards, but way (WAY!) more fragile. I've killed two of them (1GB each) without even really trying to.. 10-20cm tumble onto a wooden table. Not worth the fuss or risk in my case -- solid state only for me, and it's certainly cheap enough these days.

-ml

I'd also reccomend the biggest, fastest CF card you can afford. I've got a two gigabyte sandisk ultra II, and I never use my one gigabyte card, as it's far more trouble to keep track of two than one.

There is the argument that you shouldn't keep all your eggs in one basket, but I know for me if I only have one card that I only take out to download photos, they're all a lot safer. YMMV.

Matthew