Potential issue w/X100 startup time?

[bwcolor]

I wouldn't use a card larger then 8gb. I think you're asking for trouble. Cards do go bad. The larger the card, the more of a chance a read/write issue can occur. At least that has been my experience and some friends of mine as well. I would go bloody crazy if a nearly full 16gb card malfunctioned!

To keep your card functioning "clean", make sure you more then just delete files from it. Download the whole card to your computer or device and reformat it in the camera it was being used in after every download. I have had cards functioning properly for more then 5 years + in doing this simple step.

I just ordered the above card in 16GB. My reasoning was that these cards have memory that ages and firmware that uses different areas of the card to average usage. At least, I believe that this is true. So, I thought that partially using a card wasn't such a bad thing. I think it was around $75-$78 delivered and CA tax. I'm hoping that the video function is somewhat useful in that I would like not to carry my video camera.

I would like to buy an aftermarket battery, but a bit concerned about the "exploding battery" mentioned in a recent post.

 

[ochong]

How many RAW shots fit on an 8 MB card?

With 16 and 32 MB cards out the price on 8MB should be headed down.

B2

I'll assume you mean GB not MB 😉

From what I have heard so far, the RAW files are 20MB each, so roughly 400 on a 8GB card.

 

[_larky]

I would like to buy an aftermarket battery, but a bit concerned about the "exploding battery" mentioned in a recent post.

The exploding battery was the cheapest N-95 available, it was £2.99. I have 3 more of the exact same type now, arrived today, and they've all charged and are working fine. The explosion (more like a pop) happened during charge, and the charger is now the suspect.

 

[andrew00]

Was your lens cap on when you switch on the camera? I noticed this phenomena with my lens cap on. They adjust the OVF brightness according to how much light goes into the lens. Once I took it off, it was back to normal brightness.

The lens cap was off, but I tried it with both on and off, paranoia city and all that!

 

[peripatetic]

I had some weird startup behaviour yesterday. But fortunately I had already read this thread.

Before leaving I simply removed my 16Gb Sandisk CF card from my card reader without ejecting. My Mac told me I had been naughty, but it's never made a difference with any of my Canon cameras.

This time though it took ages. Maybe 30-60s to start up on the X100. Once it did come up though I was able to re-format the card and startup times were okay after that.

It's pretty sluggish on startup though, probably worse than any digital camera I've ever had. And when it goes to sleep in power saving mode it seems to really really go to sleep, quicker to switch it off and on again that just wake it up.

Hardly a major problem in the grand scheme of things, but some firmware improvements would be nice if they can.