I took delivery today of a Lexar Professional ExpressCard Compact Flash Reader.

Having bought a camera which produces larger files again I have become more and more fed up with the long transfer times from card to machine.

For my home PC I bought a Lexar pro Firewire 800 reader (these are daisy chainable so you can get several on the go at once!) which is ace and provides me the best possible transfer time I can get from my UDMA CF cards.

When I go to air shows, sometimes I go to both days of a 2 day event and stay overnight in a local hotel or at a friend's house. In between I need to empty my cards and prepare for the following day's shooting. Previously this has involved a USB 2 card reader and even with my 40D files the transfer times were unbearable.

My laptop has an ExpressCard slot and I noticed a few readers on the market when searching for my firewire reader so I have bought one. As it plugs straight into the mother board you get the fastest transfer times achievable for UDMA or normal CF cards.

It was only £20! (from www.mymemory.co.uk): Lexar Professional ExpressCard CompactFlash Memory Card Reader . There are cheaper variants available but usually white labelled jobs from ebay for only a fiver cheaper. I thought I would stick with a well known brand for an extra fiver.

Well worth picking up if you have an ExpressCard reader and need faster transfer while away from your main machine.