Barb
One of the reasons I do hang onto my F5 with a passion is that on our canoe trips I can’t afford to hire porters to carry the generator and diesel fuel couple the with the fact that my wife refuses to do portering now that she has got the vote ……. Grant ducking and running
g.
Grant, how many shots do you reckon you get on the F5’s battery? Or is it so hight that it’s really not an issue?
Hi Barbara,
Yes, I read about that yesterday, very interesting. Guess there’s a good reason to hang onto our film cameras. Don’t think there would be enough diesel fuel for my battery needs. 😉
Barb
Chuck
I don’t know I have never run out. According to Nikon it depends on the type of batteries (camera takes 8 AA), the temperature and the lens. They use a conservative estimate based with a midsize zoom lens travel from infinite
to closest focus and back to infinity for every shot. In the dead of winter camera ( -10 c) you will get 10 roles of 36 exposure film using alkaline and 70 roles using lithium. At a more civilized temperature (20 c) the say you will be 90 and 250 roles respectively. Flash is a bit more of a problem I only get 200 exposure off (4 fresh batteries). Nikons says I should expect 100 full power flashes.
I do carry two 12 packs of batteries (they are light weight and take up very little room) and load my camera and flash with fresh batteries before I leave. Sort of belt and braces type of guy .
The problem is not in how many shots but how long the batteries last. I can leave a set of batteries in the F5 for a year and they will still work. The ones with the digital seem to drain once I take them off the charger. While I get maybe a couple of hundred images in a day off a charge if I spaced shooting equally over a week without recharging I am not sure I would get 50 images.
g.
Chuck
Almost forgot…. I went to my local camera store and there was a D100 and it was under $2000 Canadian This was quit the shock because they first hit the marked up here around $3500 Canadian. It was very hard to back out of the camera shop. Really two SLRS are not extravagant are they?
g.
Grant, you could always use a backup! 🙂
Barb
Back-up? The camera or the batteries? I have this feeling that it is a good thing you are not my wife or we would both be broke but have all the toys. Wait … I am broke 😉
g.
Grant, I was thinking the camera of course! 😉 No seriously, I feel in the end it’s the image that counts, not the equipment that was used. This is frugal Barb speaking here now, use what you have an be happy. 🙂 Grant put your wallet away now…
Chuck, I’m trying to talk some sense into him here! 😉
Barb, you can’t battle one of the prime forces of nature: boys and their toys!
🙂
Chuck, yeah I know, what was I thinking??? More toys for all the boys! 🙂
Barbara, as you are a woman it is quite normal you still don’t understand what boys really like. It is not about a lot of toys, but about the latest toys.
Leen
Leen, I get it. 😉 There’s always something to keep you guys intrigued, especially the way technology changes today. I never really understood that mentality until I got into this digital stuff myself, now I know it all too well. 🙂
Woo woo … Barbara is one of the boys. Now remember Barb that the one at the end of the game that has the most wins.
g.
OK Grant, those rules I can live by! 🙂 You gotta give me a chance to catch up…I’m new at this!
Barb, you’ll do fine, but you cheat – you really USE the toys (very well) instead of just acquiring them!
🙂
Chuck
Chuck, thought we were supposed to USE the toys too. See, told you I have a lot to learn! I do already have a closet full of stuff not being used, does that count for anything? 😉
Speaking of that, Barb, how’s the Epson?
Barbara, it’s great so far and it does run in 10.1.5. I haven’t tried out all the features yet, I will this weekend. The prints from that machine are stunning! I’m running out of space, I now have two printers hooked up and wires all over the place.
BTW, Barb there’s just one thing that makes me regret not getting the Epson–I discovered that at XPEDX, the paper wholesaler, I could buy 100 sheets of 13×19 pro photo paper for $27, but only Epson brand. That’s an incredible price. You must have an XPEDX in Dallas–go check it out.
Barbara, thanks for that tip! I just looked them up, there are three of them in town. That’s an excellent price, glad I didn’t buy that size paper yet. Now I need to find an Epson ink wholesaler as well. Hope you’re enjoying your printer too.
Ours has some inks, too. Don’t know about Epson.
Hope you’re enjoying your printer too.
Well, yes and no. It’s fun to be able to print so large, but quite dismaying to see all my photographic inadequacies blown up so big! 😉
Barbara, I’ll check out the inks as well. The one thing I wish I had, is an Action to upsample the 4 megapixel image to the 13" x 19" size at 10% increments. I’ve been practicing so I can implement it one of these days; with paper at that price, it’ll be soon. I have a feeling I’ll find something I needed to edit after hitting the print button, especially blown up at that size.
Barbara, I almost forgot to tell you what I saw today in the Fry’s Electronic ad. Get this, they had the Power Mac G5 Dual Processor at $99.99, talk about unbelievable! 🙂 Some sale, I’ll take a few!! The ad also says they are not responsible for typos, good thing for them, that could cause a riot. Oh yeah, the iMac now comes in 20", when it gets to 23" I’ll buy another. 😉
Hi, Barb. Rumor says the imac is going to be redesigned to be magnesium and plastic to lower costs. Don’t know if there’s any truth to it or not. That’s the word from Taiwan anyway.
THE VOTE! What sort of crazy country is that? Good grief, you’ll be telling me about Britain having a woman Prime Minsiter next . . .
Andrew, cowering in fear!
Andrew,
And well you should!
Grant…just wondered…what kind of batteries do you use in your 35mm camera? The rechargeable batteries that most digitals use are NiMH, which have good…and bad qualities. They don’t degrade with frequent recharge like NiCd batteries do. But they have a high self-discharge rate. You can’t let them sit in the camera for a few months and expect them to be fully charged. Before I go out on a photo outing, I always recharge all the NiMH batteries.
Bert
Bert
Just usually just over the counter garden variety alkaline or failing that then alkaline. I use 8 AA size so easy to get.
g.
I guess film cameras generally use less power than digitals, but I find my Oly E-20 is pretty easy on batteries, and my wife’s new Canon Powershot A70 has one of the highest battery life ratings, according to dpreview…partly because it uese 4 AAs instead of 2, like most of the competition…so it’s a little heavier. I’ve traveled a lot with digital cameras and have not found battery life to be a problem generally. I don’t use the LCD monitor much, and that greatly prolongs battery life. Also, I don’t do much flash photography, another battery eater. I set my cameras to time out and go to sleep if unused for 1 minute. That slows reaction time a little, and if I’m in the middle of shooting wildlife or something, I just keep half-pressing the shutter button to keep it "awake."
Of course cold temperature really reduces battery life too, so in cold climates more frequent recharging is necessary.
But I suppose if I were going out in the wilderness for a few weeks, away from any power source for recharging, a trusty old 35mm camera would come in handy.
As I mentioned in another thread, I just acquired a really nice old Canon EOS 620 with a 35-105 zoom. 1987 vintage, but in pristine condition. I’m going to do some comparison tests between it and my E-20. Should be interesting.
Bert
Bert, film cameras use less power than digital cameras. They don’t have to write any files. 😉 BTW, I use 1800 Mah rechargeables: I use them for powering my two digital camneras, for my flasguns, infrared remote control of my studio flash setup etc.
At the moment I use 8 sets of 4 batteries; two sets are always in the recharger.
Leen
They don’t have to write any files.
That’s true, Leen, but if you think about the time spent doing that, it’s a few seconds per image…I suspect the higher power consumption is mainly caused by the LCD display which uses more than anything else except the flash.
The processor, I’m sure is CMOS, as is the memory. They really don’t use that much power…but they are powered whenever the camera is on.
The film cameras have processors in them too, though. I just acquired an old Canon EOS 620, made in 1987. It has an 8-bit processor in the box and a 4-bit processor in each lens! I just read that in the manual.
I think as the technology continues to improve…better batteries and even lower-power electronics, the battery issue will become a non-issue….or at least a lot less important.
Bert
