Canon M80 media storage - worth the price?

[phangcht]

I would like to hear from those that have used the M80 storage, what are the pro and cons of this device?

Any unbaised comment will be useful for me to make the decision. Thanks

[michael_]

i have ordered mine just waiting for it to arrive, for me price was great because canon au offered a rebate on it when purchased with a new body, once i get it ill put it to good use and report back here.

[michael_]

got it yesterday, when the tennis is over ill do a review.

so far my only negative would be the zoom in/out feature, i would like an option to be able to set zoom all the way in with one touch, other than that its fast to load, the screen is truely amazing

[michael_]

somethin i just noticed which would be cool, with my a700 when you change orientation it flicks the image to eother portrait or landscape, that would be a cool feature and they already have it with their cameras

[michael_]

now dumping images

CF card has 736 images

lets see how long it takes

[michael_]

including verification 37:51 to dump 4GB CF Card with 3.75GB of files

not to bad once i get rid of the verification which i believe is possible, which means about 14min, i was expecting a little faster but the dump speed isnt my reason its storage and viewing.

[Anke]

Seems very slow to me. My Nexto backup device does 1Gb in 50 seconds from a Sandisk III, with verification its still under a minute. Who wants to wait that long in the field to resuse their CF card?

[michael_]

true it is long, but if its just to dump while you use another card then its usefull, not like you will fill 4GB in 15-30min

[Anke]

true it is long, but if its just to dump while you use another card then its usefull, not like you will fill 4GB in 15-30min

Good point.

[bildeb0rg]

Is your CF card a "slow" one or an Extreme/Ultra? 15 mins for 4gb, from an ordinary card, is reasonable. The down side for me is the price. It strays too far into new laptop territory, to be justifiable.

[::John::]

Seems very slow to me. My Nexto backup device does 1Gb in 50 seconds from a Sandisk III, with verification its still under a minute. Who wants to wait that long in the field to resuse their CF card?

true it is long, but if its just to dump while you use another card then its usefull, not like you will fill 4GB in 15-30min

I get those kinds of download speeds writing from CF to the P-2000

The major downside is the battery consumption over that period of download - especially if you have several downloads in a day.

At least, with the M80, you can use Canon batteries.

[blackshadow]

I will be getting mine on Thursday. I think it will be rather valuable for some big all day or multi day events I have coming up like the Big Day Out and the Australian F1 Grand Prix.

[fuego]

I've use MP80 and Vosonic 8390 before, and really nothing special about MP80 else than the price. True about John's comment about the battery, although now removable compare to older models, still it's not standard and vosonic's tends to drain the battery faster. But talking about features, it kicks MP80's ass, and it has removable laptop hdd standard (2.5"). If its to get more L lenses, i'll go with vosonic ;)

[smorter]

Are there any potential problems with Media Devices? I'd hate to get corrupted images from them, it seems like another point in the chain where something can go wrong

The M80 is way too costly for me, I got a 40D + 70-200mm f/4L IS to get rebate so the rebate is out of the question

I might look into the M30 but the download speed is too slow in my opinion.

[amironsi]

where did u order it from and how much does it cost. i tried to find it on b&h and adorama but it si nto thee

[Jon]

where did u order it from and how much does it cost. i tried to find it on b&h and adorama but it si nto theeCanon's not offering it in the US or Canada. Riddle me not why; they didn't offer their computers very widely here either.

[ticounne]

The Canon M-80 is not sold in North-America.

You'd have to ask Canon why.

On the other hand, the Epson 5000 is the best (IMHO).


Jean

[Anke]

I get those kinds of download speeds writing from CF to the P-2000.

Do you mean the fast speed I quoted or the speeds that Cider quoted? I used to have a P2000 and was beyond frustrated at how long it took to transfer, so sold it.

[blackshadow]

Anyone got experience in how long the battery lasts? EG how many shots you can download before it dies?

The Australian rebate makes the M80 rather attractive.

[michael_]

i am using Extreme III cards so not crap slow cards.

As blackshadow says the rebate is what made me purchase it, $300 off when i bought my 2nd MarkIII with aussie warranty meant all up it was just on $500.

As for battery life, i put a fully charged battery in, did the transfer and it still had 3 of the 4 bars left, i then looked at a bunch of shots for aabout an hour and just checked and the battery has 1 bar left, so all in all im happy with it.

Another feature i havent seen mentioned anywhere is a password feature, set it to on and when you turn the unit on you need to enter a password, great feature for me.

[blackshadow]

Thanks Cider - just ordered an extra battery to go with it for those big jobs away from home/computer/power.

[michael_]

did you norder stirlinktek? get yourself some they are alot better than canon OEM

[blackshadow]

Yep ordered stirlingtek - email arrived this morning saying they are out of stock but should have them in a couple of weeks.

[Canonman47]

I have used it for a year and by & large I'm happy with it, but once I tried to print directly to my Selphy cp730 it constantly asked me to connect to 220V outlet. Problem it comes only with a charger. Otherwise it works well and is well buillt. I would also have liked a menuchoice allowing upgrade of internal software (firmware) - I have not found such a possibility. :oops:

[blackshadow]

I dumped a couple of full 4GB cards to mine with RAW images they took 20-30 mins each including image verification. I'm thinking the image verification might have to be turned off by default.

Very nice previews of your shots when in the field.

First impressions are it does exactly what I want it to do and will be very happy with it.

[stasber]

I have one of these available (secondhand but like new) and would like to check that it will work with a 40D.

Not a silly question; I have a cheaper 3rd party device (i-Tec Photobank Premium 80) which has no problems in reading CR2 files from my 20D but stalls after 2 mins after starting a backup from my 40D files. If I put the same CF card into the 20D and shoot a few frames, the backup runs OK (i.e. formatted/blank card). I only shoot RAW.

Also I saw the press release awhile back which said user firmware update was (going to be) featured but have seen a few posts (incl above Canonman47) suggesting it's not. Is it/isn't it? Should I worry about it? The M80 has been out quite some time now.

How good would you rate the screen for review quality? I shoot mostly gigs and on long shoots would probably want to review pics, some of which I'd zoom in to check focus or overall clarity of subject matter. My i-Tec is useless for this as the images on the screen are hazy at best when zoomed and 'adequate' at full frame.

Thanks.

[weka2000]

I brought 1 this week. Did I pay to much........yes. Worth it yes.

Same batterys as my 5D, 3.7" screen and heaps of space. Well paded, easy to use. No RED ring so I have to keep out of the rain :lol:

There are heaps of cheaper alternatives out there. So shop around.

[blackshadow]

I have one of these available (secondhand but like new) and would like to check that it will work with a 40D.

Not a silly question; I have a cheaper 3rd party device (i-Tec Photobank Premium 80) which has no problems in reading CR2 files from my 20D but stalls after 2 mins after starting a backup from my 40D files. If I put the same CF card into the 20D and shoot a few frames, the backup runs OK (i.e. formatted/blank card). I only shoot RAW.

Also I saw the press release awhile back which said user firmware update was (going to be) featured but have seen a few posts (incl above Canonman47) suggesting it's not. Is it/isn't it? Should I worry about it? The M80 has been out quite some time now.

How good would you rate the screen for review quality? I shoot mostly gigs and on long shoots would probably want to review pics, some of which I'd zoom in to check focus or overall clarity of subject matter. My i-Tec is useless for this as the images on the screen are hazy at best when zoomed and 'adequate' at full frame.

Thanks.

It reads 1D Mark III cr2 files no problem so it should handle 40D files without a problem.

[stasber]

It reads 1D Mark III cr2 files no problem so it should handle 40D files without a problem.
Yes I've read that elsewhere too. Mk III was issued before the M80 went in public circulation, 40D after. However the M80 was announced Sep 2006 but not available till May 2007 or later, suggesting any (potential) tweaks to CR2 files in pending cameras would have been tested/incorporated, including the new sRAW format.

Point to note that applications needed an update to support RAW files from the 40D suggesting that the CR2 file on a 20D is not the same CR2 file on a 40D. Don't know if that update was simply to introduce the new model to the library, or more, but I'm guessing it's a bit more than that.

[michael_]

so, used the m80 to its fullest over the weekend, dumped about 18gb worth on to it yesterday it took no more than about 45min, verification was set to off, and just got home and dumped all the shots from the m80 to my hdd through lightroom, wow 2 days worth of shots 23gb and it took all of 64min to import and that and the original cf dumps all with one battery charge and it still has one bar left, very impressive i must say, well worth it.

[blackshadow]

so, used the m80 to its fullest over the weekend, dumped about 18gb worth on to it yesterday it took no more than about 45min, verification was set to off, and just got home and dumped all the shots from the m80 to my hdd through lightroom, wow 2 days worth of shots 23gb and it took all of 64min to import and that and the original cf dumps all with one battery charge and it still has one bar left, very impressive i must say, well worth it.

It's pretty cool isn't it - I shot over 3000 shots in RAW at the Big Day Out a couple of weeks ago. Each time I had shot a band would download from the CF card to the M80 and then when I got home downloaded them all to the computer in Bridge - too easy!

[michael_]

it is, and for me peace of mind knowing i have backed up my shots on my laptop, m80 and if need be leave them on the card to be utra safe, i just spoke to someone who was at the same event i was on the weekend and he had no backup, just had 4 x 4gb cards, he got home and has subsequently lost the cards, if he had the m80 (which he was thinking about) he could have done it all on the spot, cf cards are so easily lost or misplaced its just not worth the pain afterwards.

[stasber]

It's pretty cool isn't it - I shot over 3000 shots in RAW at the Big Day Out a couple of weeks ago. Each time I had shot a band would download from the CF card to the M80 and then when I got home downloaded them all to the computer in Bridge - too easy!
I read that the M80 backs up from CF card into a date folder - the date of the backup, not the date of the pics.

If you make several backups during one day, does it dump it into the same folder or create a new one for each new backup? Did you end up with one folder with 3000 images in it, or several smaller ones per backup activity?

How easy is it to rename this default folder? Take your scenario, where I'd want to run the backup, then rename the folder the pics were just loaded into with a short code, so that the next backup creates a new default folder instead of adding to the same one. Does that make sense?

My M80 is in the post btw.. I'm thinking ahead to long shoots (performance arts).

[michael_]

the date of the backup, which to me is fine as its the day i would shoot.

it dumps them in to different folders renamed as follows:

20080210.005
20080210.004
20080210.003
20080210.002
20080210.001

and so on, they where my 5 card backups from yesterday.

renaming is easy just select the album you want, click the menu button > modify album > input album name and change the name to whatever you wish.

you can then also move contents from one folder to another so say you had all tennis folder dumps then some ski trip dumps you could rename or make a new album and move all the tennis in to the tennis album and the ski trip in to another, not sure if you can have parent type directories

[stasber]

great stuff, thanks cider

[stasber]

A quick update, my M80 arrived today and it works with CR2 files from the 40D no bother.

Regarding the verify, if I'm not wrong, the verify happens AFTER the pics have been loaded to the HDD. Took a few mins to load a gig, with the light flashing away & whatnot and the screen showing the progress bar. So once that's done I can remove the card. Not sure if I can load another card whilst the verify is still ongoing.

[michael_]

i removed the verification option, i dont know what its purpose is, but yeah you are correct verification takes place after the images have been dumped, not sure if you can take the card out but i dont see why not, i know with lightroom once the images have been imported you can then LR renders resized images for a few hours :)

[blackshadow]

I have switched the verification off on mine too and had no problems.

[stasber]

Well, first time in action yesterday. During a theatre performance had to swap 2 cards over a couple of times, so I backed up immediately on the spot whilst sooting with the other. My only problem was after the second swap (so I was using my 1st/original card again) I forgot to format the card before shooting so I got a 'CF Full' about 14 frames in.... sh*t... selective erase & carry on! :)

But in-situ it's great, does the job, gets on with it.. card sits inside the unit so I can slip it back into the pouch on my belt with hold switch on, and it backs up & verifies and finishes without any fuss.

Saying that... it's not the fastest of devices is it! Takes ages to cache the images when reviewing for the first time! Once cached, flicking through them and erasing etc, is fine. Zooming is terribly slow too, cached or not cached. And it does eat batteries. Glad of the BP-511 and my carrying 2 spares.

Overall though I am delighted with it, only slight misgiving is the operating speed.

[jhom]

I'm curious. What would be the advantages of the M80 over a Colorspace from hyperdrive.com? I use the Colorspace for backup.

[stasber]

I've no idea how good the screen is on the ColourSpace but on the M80 it is excellent, giving an accurate rendering that is very satisfying, and the 3.7 inch screen sure beats 2.2. If you already own Canon kit using the BP-511 battery then you'll already have a spare as this is what the M80 uses. It has the Canon look/feel, making controls already familiar including viewing modes with exif/shooting info and histogram. The cards insert all the way into the body, they don't stick out, so there's no awkwardness when running a card.

[jhom]

I've no idea how good the screen is on the ColourSpace but on the M80 it is excellent, giving an accurate rendering that is very satisfying, and the 3.7 inch screen sure beats 2.2. If you already own Canon kit using the BP-511 battery then you'll already have a spare as this is what the M80 uses. It has the Canon look/feel, making controls already familiar including viewing modes with exif/shooting info and histogram. The cards insert all the way into the body, they don't stick out, so there's no awkwardness when running a card.

The Colorspace downloads files at a rate of 1gb/min and the battery life is much greater than 60+gb/charge. The screen is quite adequate to view the files. It is not meant for extensive editing or viewing. It is $199 for a bare unit and can be populated with an HD up to 250gb at this time. The battery and HD are user accessible and replaceable.

How does the M80 compare in these aspects?

[Lorem]

I'm a little disapointed with mine. My mini review here...

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=454935

[Canonman47]

I have a problem when I connect the unit to any usb-connection (printer, pc...). It closes after telling me that it is connected to a usb-device and will close down. Does it need to be on DC-power to work properly. Anyone who knows?

[michael_]

sounds like your power setting, go through the config and see if its set to power OFF after a period, i know i changed mine, now it goes in to hybernation after a period

[Jon]

It may be designed to draw power from an outside supply when hooked up to a computer and only run off batteries when in stand-alone. Not an unheard-of design strategy, as often drives will be on a computer for extended periods of time. And if the USB port can't supply enough power . . .