downloading from 10D to PC....

[edmund]

I am soon to get my 10D :D . I was wondering about downloading. With my G2 I just plug in to the mains and connect to the computer (thinking that it saves battery juice....) With the 10D can you plug in to the mains? I'm thinking probably not as the battery is recharged etc out of camera. So how much of a battery drain is downloading into Zoombrowser? - downloading a full 128mb card takes a good few minutes with the G2, a full 512 or 1gb download from the 10D could take 20, 30 minutes??!!
Is it better to ignore and uninstall Zoombrowser and let XP pro collect the images ..... would it be quicker? I don't particularly want to buy another piece of software, I just want to get images quickly onto the computer without draing the battery.
Any thoughts??

[DaveG]

I am soon to get my 10D :D . I was wondering about downloading. With my G2 I just plug in to the mains and connect to the computer (thinking that it saves battery juice....) With the 10D can you plug in to the mains? I'm thinking probably not as the battery is recharged etc out of camera. So how much of a battery drain is downloading into Zoombrowser? - downloading a full 128mb card takes a good few minutes with the G2, a full 512 or 1gb download from the 10D could take 20, 30 minutes??!!
Is it better to ignore and uninstall Zoombrowser and let XP pro collect the images ..... would it be quicker? I don't particularly want to buy another piece of software, I just want to get images quickly onto the computer without draing the battery.
Any thoughts??

Pretty much the first thing I bought after I bought my 10D was a CF card reader. It made no sense to me at all to use my camera as a VCR. I could see all kinds of issues with that approach, from draining the batteries a bit, to snagging the cord at some point and dumping the camera onto the floor.

The card reader I got was a SanDisk 6 in 1, USB 2, so that also improved the download times from the 10D's USB 1. whatever, so that helped too. From an investment of about $30 it strikes me as a no brainer.

[sGu]

USB 2.0 card reader is definitely a good idea, do not transfer photos direct from camera to pc, it consumes camera battery n takes much longer than card readers.

[jimtfoto]

agreed ... buy a good card reader instead of downloading direct from camera ... saves tons of time
jim