Now that my G1 is charging....

[sportsdc]

What's the perfect amount of flash memory to carry?

[maple]

Depends on your picture requirements, really. Also whether you prefer RAW or other compressed formats. I personally do not enjoy having any less than 300mb+ because the wonders of digitization allows for unlimited "creativity" shots and I do not want to be limited by my CF. Also, if you don't have your laptop with you, it's important to not have to download the pictures early.

An aside: what made you choose the G1 over the Pro90IS? I am still deciding between the 2 and need advice. I love G1's size but love Pro90's 10X zoom as well.

Maple

[polak187]

Never enough....


But 1 gig microdrive will do for a start...

[wpope]

I chose the G1 over the Pro 90 IS for two reasons:

1. Price, the G1 can be bought mailorder for under
$650 now.

2. Image size. I like the fact the G1 uses the full
3.1 megapixel resolution.

True, the 10X tele is really fine as well as the
image stabilization, but for the money I think the
G1 is a better value right now.

Woody Pope

[cwhite]

Another option to consider is the "Digital Wallet" from Minds At Work.

http://www.mindsatwork.net/

The largest capacity of one of these devices is 20Gig, and sells at $549 US. It looks like you can also use it for storing regular files from your computer, and so would be useful as an external PC storage device.

You can just plug your regular CF card into this device while you are on the road, and it will download all the data. Then you could get away with using a regular 64Meg CF card with no problem.

If anyone has any experience with this device, please let me know,

Cheers,
Chris.

[John - NJ]

Chris:

I have the 20gb Digital Wallet. It is great! I purchased it from eCOST.com. The cost breakdown was:

20gb Digital Wallet - $473.48
Handling - $13.95
Shipping - $9.50

Total cost - $496.93

I bought it to take on vacation with me. It is a regular hard drive with internal software. It is menu driven. It can be used as an external drive when hooked up to my PC via the USB port.

It's fast, easy, portable and it works. You cannot hook it up to your TV to view your photos. I first hook the camera up to the TV and look at the photos. Then I dump them into the Digital Wallet for storage until I get home. This allows me to start each day with a clean card. I left mine in the hotel safe since I had a 1gb microdrive but you could take it with you if you have a smaller card. Hope this helps.

[cwhite]

Thanks for the info John.

The product looks great on their website, and it was very tempting to try, just needed to hear from a real user. I'll keep this in mind for a future purchase.

Cheers,
Chris.

[Kid Moe]

Something too consider is battery life. Even at the highest resolution, a 128MB flash card can fit 90 images. Unless you close the LCD viewfinder, and not use the flash, 90 pictures will suck up a lot of battery power. (I get low battery warnings after about 120 high-res outdoor pictures)

If you consider anything more than 128MB, consider an additional battery, you are going to need it.

By the way if you are really gung-ho about storage, www.onvia.com has cheap CF cards. $189 US for 256MB of Kingston Compact Flash.

--

KM

[John - NJ]

KM:

You should get that battery checked. I have taken 400+ RAW shots with the LCD open, continuous focus, wth flash and without and played them all back on my TV and I still did not get a low battery warning.

[Kid Moe]

I stand corrected. I have just read the review of the G1 on www.dpreview.com and the author states that he was able to squeeze out 250 shots before a low battery warning. I am going to have to check to see if my battery is bad.

--

KM

[Teffy]

John,

This question was raised elsewhere on this forum: does the Digital Wallet have a problem with strange file formats (like RAW)?

Also, can you partition the digital wallet drive just like any other hard drive? I am excited about the possibility of using it for saving CF contents from my Pro90 AND as extra storage for the PC. 8)

Do you have any info on longevity or ruggedness of this drive? I am still stinging from spending $300 on a SyQuest Sparq removable drive for the PC and having it die and the company go out of business :~(

Teffy

P.S. I can't get enough of those emoticons :D

[sbrooks02]

I usually get about 150 pics/charge without using the flash much, but I do use the LCD. I also tend to hold the shutter button halfway down a lot to get quick, focused action shots.

What really annoying is that the battery indicator hardly gives you any warning before the battery is exhausted. It says it's full for the first 145 pics, then immediately drops to the red (1/4 full), which is good for only about 4 or 5 shots, and then the battery is completely dead.

[cwhite]

I have to concur with sbrooks about the battery life. I get the same 150 pics/charge, and the terrible low bat warning with 5 shots to go.

[cwhite]

Teffy,

I ended up buying a digital wallet and have been using it for the last 2 weeks. It acts like a regular external storage device and so can be used to store any kind of file from the PC. The problem is that it only uses 8.3 file naming convention, and truncates longer named files to that format. One solution to this if you are interested in storing whole directory trees is to zip them up first into a file eg. myDir.zip, and use the option to retain path info. This solution is really only good if you are looking for a device to transfer files between computers, not for actively looking at or running whole apps from the device.

Chris.

[RichardSimon]

All,

My experience with G1 battery life has been good so far, but I have noticed that it takes a long time for the green fully-charged light to come on for a drained battey. While Canon claims that the steady amber light means 90% charge, I wonder if that is really the case? I try to get a full overnight charge when I can. (I only use the in camera charger).

My personal experience: two batterys, fully charged (1 in the camera, 1 in my pocket) is a perfect match to the capacity of a 1GB microdrive. If I use the LCD nearly continuously (taking lots of macro shots where LCD usage is a must), the 1st battery will run out at around 250 shots. With less LCD usage, using mostly the viewfinder and the small lcd on top of the G1 to make adjustments, I have taken up to 360 pictures on a single battery, over a period of 9 or 10 hours. That usage included some previewing, and deleting of pictures; I wasn't making any special efforts to conserve power. I haven't noticed any difference between the two batteries - both Canon BP511's.

Richard