We assume by now everyone who reads Akihabara News on a regular basis is familiar with the various memory cards available, and I’m sure most of you girls and guys have manipulated a CF (Compact Flash).

Over the past several years many of us have heard horor stories about when a CF, or other media for that matter, went corrupt and lost photos… But how many of you have heard the opposite, where after years of physical torture data and the CF was still 100% operational? This is exactly what we have for you today.

Last Saturday while shooting some video for our “Let’s Visit Tokyo” Series, in the middle of nowhere and a part of a park forbidden to the public, I stumbled upon a little plastic case with a CF in it (the case that comes with a CF)… The CF was muddy, some pinholes where full of dirt… Surprised to see a CF card left in direct sunlight, I took it home.

I removed the dirt, cleaned out the pinholes, and plugged it into my MacPro and discover something I didn’t expect… I could easily access to every photo (and boring press coverage photos), and the date they were taken completely amazed me…. 4/20/03… Yep, these pictures were taken in 2003, six years ago with a Nikon D100!

I don’t know if you realize what this means? This 128MB Transcend CF card spent around six years laying on the grass in a park in direct sunlight, went through the heat of summer (which can get up to 50 degrees), to the cold of winter (5 to 10 below 0), the recurrent humidity, heavy rain (typhoons), snow… You name it, and didn’t blink a single second… How amazing is that!

I knew CF cards were resistant, but I never thought they could be THIS resistant…. Conclusions are as follows:

1) Next time you drop a CF on the floor or leave it unattended somewhere don’t freak out, your data will most likely remain safe.

2) In Japan you don’t find wallets full of money, but geeky stuff like CF cards… Yep, Japan isn’t like any other place.