S50 Battery life

[Jimbus]

I have just bought a Canon Powershot S50 with microdrive, I was aware before I purchased it that the battery would drain quicker when using the micro drive, I am just wanting to find out a few things and see if other users have similar experiences, when I bought the camera I also bought a spare battery so running out of power is not a major problem, but I just wanted to find out more.

My battery is good for about 70-80 large superfine pictures with the LCD screen on and also going in and reviewing the shots a few time zooming in and out etc.

How long is the battery life on average if I had a 512MB CF card? would it be significantly longer than this.

I am also wondering whether the following factors will help in prolonging the battery life - keeping the LCD screen off when shooting outside in P mode, shooting shots in medium size superfine, as it is a shorter writing to disc time.

any advice from other owners would be helpful, as I say I can combat the problem reasonably easily but having 1 or 2 backup batteries with me, especially when I am travelling, I don't mind doing this to compensate for having larger storage space and more battery drain, I just want to make sure that what is happening with my camera is normal.

thanks
Jim

[chamberc]

Used my S50 in Italy for 2 weeks and often shot more than 100 pictures a day/night on my 512 MB card so I never actually pushed the battery to the limit. I always shot with the screen review on for 3 seconds after the picture... I NEVER ran out of battery before I got back to the hotel to recharge... I carried an extra battery just in case but never used it... Some people have reported shooting 300-400 shots on one charge... I've just never taken that many pictures in one day...

[Jimbus]

thanks, so it seems that the microdrive will certainly drain the battery more, when you say that you shot with a picture review for 3 seconds after, do you mean that when you took shots you always used the viewfinder to frame shots and never the LCD screen?

[chamberc]

Sorry for not being clear... I periodically used the viewfinder but primarily used the LCD to frame the pictures... I had the camera set to auto-review the shot for 3 seconds Usually I would take 3 or 4 pictures then powerdown the unit... It was able to take over 100 pictures spread out throughout the day from 9AM to 1AM (we were in Italy for a wedding so we had events at night) and the camera never needed recharging. I did recharge it each night, but it never ran out during the day.

The 512 MB card holds about 200 pictures at highest JPG resolution/lowest compression and superfine and when I'd fill the card up I'd off load the pictures to my Axim PocketPC for which I have a several 128 MB and 256 MB SD cards. I was really surprised with how much I was able to use the LCD and review pictures without recharging. I had an extra battery and never needed it.

[Jimbus]

wow, sounds like it has a significant amount of more juice than mine, I definitely think it must be the microdrive, will have to get myself a 512 also, I got the microdrive included when I bought it, I wanted the black model of the camera, and it could only be purchased with the microdrive, I am going to do a few tests for instance using it with viewfinder only and never reviewing shots seeing how much difference it makes.

The image quality I have set it on is 'L' and 'Superfine" I take it thats the same as yours? you said somethign about the lowet compressions setting, is that a different setting?

[chamberc]

Nope, we're both shooting at the same resolution and JPEG compression. I've been more than happy and actually surprised with my battery life. The only down side is I don't know how close I've come to totally discharging the camera since it doesn't have a battery meter.