Whereas film gets exposed at the speed of light, a digital camera CCD image gets written out to the camera's storage much slower (anywhere from 120K/sec to at best 2 MB/sec). CompactFlash (or CF) cards vary considerably in their write speeds as well as capacities and robustness in the field. Since high-speed, high-capacity CF cards cost a lot, and you can end up spending a lot of time waiting for your snapshots to get written out to memory, it pays to understand more about this subject. It turns out that the manufacturer's speed ratings (12x, 16x, etc) do not guarantee that your digicam will write images out that much faster than some other brand, depending on your camera and other variables. I list some of the interesting articles I've found on choosing CompactFlash cards for your digicam below:

Speed in the field is one thing, but then when you transfer the images to your computer, you have to wait once again. There are several common ways to accomplish this transfer: a cable between computer and camera, a CF card reader, or an intermediate device such as the digital wallet. The following articles examine some of these choices:

Barefeat's comparison of Firewire vs. USB Flash card readers

To get an idea of how much these little cards will set you back, here's some pricing links:

DC Resource's price list