? 4 300D users

[Spartan13]

Well I plan on having buying my 300D in about 2 weeks to use with my new sigma 50-500mm lens which arrives Wed . My question is with so many different brands of compact flash cards which brand would be good and about how many pictures do you get to store with a 256mb or 512mb card? Do any of you use the canon BG-E1 battery grip for your camera?

[MD11Forever]

I currently have a 512mb CF card, which is my primary "film"; and a 64mb card which I purchased to use while downloading the contents of the 512mb card to my laptop. The 512 is allowing me somewhere around 155 shots, in the highest quality jpeg mode on the 300D. The 64 will hold around 18 on the same settings...if my memory serves me correctly.
My 512 was made by SanDisk; the 64 by Lexar. The Lexar seems to be a bit quicker when transferring with the card reader. (a must-buy, the 300D was like a snail in d/l photos direct.)
Hope this helps, welcome to the 300D club.

[DeltaASA16]

The BG-E1 is a MUST! I am getting it ASAP when i get back to Virginia. The advantages of shooting vertically and having a second battery doubles your time to shoot.

Also, congrats on the Tele lense. I am gonna get a Canon 75-300 IS (as soon as my tax refund comes in :P)

But congrats on the 300D. Great Camera but there is LOADS to learn about these cameras. I learn something new every day.

Adam

[MD11Forever]

Adam, I haven't run in to any troubles so far without the BG-E1. My camera came with a second battery as part of a package...I've made two 6-hour "marathon" aircraft photo trips, shooting over 550 images one day and over 600 the other, and the battery meter on the 300D never moved at all. I can see if you are using the flash alot, that would make a difference...
Just my $.02 worth.

[Greg]

On Saturday I got 113 pics on my 256mb card with room to spare. I picked up the cards at Sam's Club as they had them for a much cheaper price than Best Buy, etc.

I have 2 batteries but 1 battery can hold you for 10+ hours. The battery grip is unnecessary in my opinion.

[Airbus_A320]

I have a Lexar Pro 40x (6mb/s) 1gb CF card. It's sweet! I would reccomend shooting RAW eventhough others would say otherwise. If you mess up the pic as far as exposure for example you can fix that easily with a RAW picture. Also with RAW there is no image degradation out of the camera while even with the high quality JPEG there is some degradation. Once you get the pics to your computer convert them to 16bit TIFF's and edit. Then convert it to JPEG last. Trust me, do it this way...

Also my battery has never run out while shooting lots of pics on a full charge... don't spend money on the grip...

[PortColumbus]

I use a standard Sandisk 512MB CF card, and it holds about 84 RAW files. If I need more, I throw them on my $99 20GB photo library.

Don't worry about getting a 40x card, the 300D cannot use the Write Accelerator technology, and they are only marginally faster. Don't waste the money.


I've never run out of battery yet, but I do carry a spare. No battery grip for me.

[Airbus_A320]

But still..... if you ever upgrade in the future to a camera that can use WA it's good to have. I can take a sequence of about 6 or 7 with that card, just have to repress the shutter after 4 frames, but by that time it's already written a couple pics to the card, so it allowes you to take a few more. However i only use the one that comes out the best.

[Spartan13]

Thanks you guys for giving me your input.

[MD11Forever]

Paul, I've been considering shooting in RAW format...
what are the advantage/disadvantages of it? I don't really know that much about it yet.
Thanks,

[Airbus_A320]

Paul, I've been considering shooting in RAW format...
what are the advantage/disadvantages of it? I don't really know that much about it yet.
Thanks,

Well, for one you get no image degradation from JPEG compression straight out of the camera even before you start editing. Secondly things such as exposure, contrast, white balance, sharpness are not writtten in stone. Once you get the image to your computer you can use the canon file viewer utility to adjust those things if you need to. Then you can convert the image to a 16bit tiff to edit it in PS.

The only disadvantage is the increase file size. You need a 512mb or 1gb CF. However if you get the 300D hack that enables some 10D features such a selection of the file size of the JPEG imbedded in the CRW/RAW file and set the JPEG to be small and low quality you can fit a few more RAW on the card. Don't worry about the size/quality of the imbeded JPEG, you wont be using it.

Hope this helps.

[MD11Forever]

Thanks for the info, Paul. I think next time I go out I'll snap off a few in RAW format to play with. I assume I can make all the changes in Paint Shop Pro as well as the Canon utility or PS...
Are the write times to the CF card slowed down at all with the 300D writing the bigger RAW file?

[Airbus_A320]

i think it will take longer to write as the RAW is bigger

[Spartan13]

By reading these posts I've got so much to learn since this is my first Digital camera. Anybody want to direct to where would be a good place to start reading on alot of this stuff?

[kruegerflap]

?4 300d Users

However if you get the 300D hack that enables some 10D features such a selection of the file size of the JPEG imbedded in the CRW/RAW file and set the JPEG to be small and low quality you can fit a few more RAW on the card.

Airbus_A320, any info on how to accomplish this plus any pro's and con's would be greatly appreciated. I prefer to shoot in RAW format and being able to squeeze more pics on the card would be nice.

Thanks in advance.

Bob