Advice for Canon 10D accessories

[Gabriel Rasson]

Hi all,

We are soon buying the famous digital reflex Canon 10D. We have some questions to ask to those who use this camera.
- How long does the battery work? If we go birding all day long, do we need one or two or ... more?
- Is the battery fast recharged (is one charger enough for 2 or 3 batteries to be charged every evening)?
- What type of memory card do you recommend: compact flash or microdrive? Once again, we'll go on birding all day long and we don't want to miss THE great shot because of memory failure.
- What would be the microdrive advantage(s) (except its greater capacity)? Speed?

Thank you to all those who will respond.

Gabriel & Marie Rasson

[digi-birder]

Gabriel & Marie,

The batteries on the 10D last quite some time - in my experience anyway. On my recent trips the battery did not need charging till after almost a week of moderate use. I then usually charge that one overnight and the spare one lasts as long again. One is the original Canon and the other is a compatible brand, which was quite a bit cheaper.

I suppose it depends how many photos you intend to take on your day out. I would imagine that even if you take many more photos than I do, one battery should last at least a day, especially if you conserve power by not leaving the camera switched on constantly. I noticed that the 10D and my previous Canon G3 were very good with battery usage, whereas my Coolpix 995 would run out very quickly during the day, even if I turned off most of the time.

I use compact Flash - I have heard some reports of microdrives failing, but I haven't gone into it in enough detail to say any more. I have a variety of sizes ranging from 32MB (bought originally for my digi-compact camera) to 512MB. Shooting at the next to highest quality I managed over 100 shots on the 128MB card on a recent trip.

[assayer]

Gabriel & Marie,

I use a Canon D60 & Canon 10D, both use the same battery and BG-ED3 Battery Grip accessory (Holds two batteries). I have five 128MB CF-Memory cards and shoot only in the RAW file format...big files. On a day long shoot I may take 300 - 400 photos. In addition, I use one of Canon's image stabalized lens, which operates on the cameras batteries. With this usage and the twin battery accessory, I have never exhausted a fully charged battery pack in a day. (I still carry back-up batteries) I do fill the memory cards, five 128MB CF cards will hold about 100 RAW photos. I use a portable 20GB Hard Drive in the field to download CF cards so I can keep shooting.

Dick

[Geoff Brown]

Battery usage is pretty good but always carry a spare. Can't speak for micro drives as I have never used them but get as big a capacity CF card as you can as the raw files eat up a lot of data space. Useful accessory is a remote switch to minimize vibration when camera is mounted on tripod together with a long lens.

[kit-monster]

I was out yesterday all day with my 10D and 100-400L which has IS. I took over 400 photos before the battery warning came on. I have two batteries, both Canon and only rarely need to use the second. Recharging seems to take less than an hour - I've never timed it, as it's so quick.

As for cards, I use 2 x 256 and shoot RAW. I get 40 to 44 images per card which I then back up on to a 40GB Vosonic X'S-Drive II. Each card takes four minutes to copy. It's worth getting fast cards for emptying the buffer and for copying to a portable storage device or computer. Microdrives are very slow and you might find the buffer filling up. I'll be getting some bigger cards soon as I find I'm having to swap too frequently. You might want to read Rob Galbraith's excellent reviews and performace figures for cards.Here's the link. (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007) His database is very useful when purchasing new cards.
The 10D is a lovely camera – happy snapping.

Edward