Re: 5 Digital Camera Questions

Part of the discrepancy between the manufacturer's claim and the number of
shots you get in the field may also be explained by the type and size of the
file you're writing. Low-level jpegs are quick and easy to write. giant RAW
files and TIFs take more juice.

About throwing away the manual -- I forgot who I was talking to. I do a lot
of public teaching and often run into people who can't figure out how to use
the wrist strap and tossed out the booklet with the gift wrapping. This
crowd saves the boxes!

You might try downloading the G5 manual onto a CD. (It'll probably come down
as a .pdf file which you can open with Acrobat Reader. If you can do that,
you will be able to do a word search. In that case, "monitor" and "LCD
monitor" will give you the same results (until they abbreviate it to LCD.)

You're right when you say all of these things have their quirks. Whew! Good
thing we don't have any.... :-)

Barry
Barry Kleider
Photographer. Arts Educator.
612.722.9701
email: bkleider@sihope.com
Web: www.barryphotography.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Judy Seigel" <jseigel@panix.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 10:54 PM
Subject: Re: 5 Digital Camera Questions

>
> On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, Barry Kleider wrote:
>
> > Judy,
> > I'm assuming you have one of the "cheaper" consumer model digital
cameras.
>
> I have the Canon Powershot G5; when I bought it last year it cost about
> $700, including 256 MB memory chip. Is that one of the cheaper consumer
> models?
>
> > Though you don't mention which one. A lot of these cheaper models have
some
> > very frustrating "quirks."
>
> IME all of them have their quirks, although comparing notes with my
> brother who has an older 3 megapixel, I see that the G5 has some
> improvements. For instance, you can delete pictures at any point -- it
> simply tightens the thread. The next picture doesn't go in the hole, but
> continues in sequence. His drops new ones in wherever a space has been
> made, and since it doesn't show date and time on each (as the G5 does), it
> can be impossible to know where on a 10 or 20 day trip a picture was made.
>
> > All digital equipment eats batteries for breakfast. If your battery is
dying
> > off faster than you should expect, it might be an old battery. The fun
> > little LCD screens are the biggest power hogs onboard. Some cameras have
a
> > way to turn off the LCD screen. If you find yourself running out of
juice,
> > this may save your skin.
>
> The viewing lens on the G5 is dreck, so I usually use the LCD monitor. If
> it runs out, I carry a spare, but I was struck by the great discrepancy
> between the mileage I was getting and that claimed in the manual.
>
> > Also, make sure you run your battery all the way down to zero before you
> > recharge it. this helps keep the battery toned.
>
> Actually, rather than my running the battery down to zero, my battery runs
> me down to zero. The interval between the low battery warning and the "no
> power" message is breathtakingly short. I also charge the batteries to
> the total, two hours past the merely "charged" point, as the manual
> suggests, etc. etc. etc. The manual says I should get 450 shots WITH THE
> MONITOR on. I'm getting about 1/7th of that. I just wondered if there's
> any explanation other than "the manufacturer is lying." But it occurs to
> me that Canon may have included less monitor time per shot than reality
> requires.
>
> > One trick I learned by accident: download your user's manual and save it
to
> > CD. Then, when you're looking for the button that controls the who-haw
> > settings when you're shooting in Yamaguchi mode, you can just do a key
word
> > search...
>
> My users manual is a 209 page book. There is a canon website for the G5,
> which was some help because the illustrations are more realistic, but
> otherwise, being able to turn pages works better. However, not all "key
> words" are indexed. For instance, "monitor" n'existe pas. You have to
> look up "LCD monitor." And if you know exactly what terminology those
> bozos used, you probably already know how to operate the thing.
>
> > ...BTW - don't throw away your manual.
>
> Barry, Barry, Barry ! -- Why would I throw away my manual??!! Who throws
> away the manual for complicated digital equipment????? I'm also keeping it
> for my PhD -- a case study in how to make information inacessible.
>
> best,
>
> Judy
>
>
Received on Fri Jun 11 10:06:22 2004