MicroDrives
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I have no experience with digital cameras and just a year with film SLR which is normally scanned onto disc. Recently though I have been doing extensive reading up on digital, specifically from the likes of Michael Reichmann (very good site for any type of photography BTW). One plus in his favour is that he is a film expert and has moved to digital for his 35mm photography. So his experiences and expectations will be similar to mine (though of a higher quality of course as he is a pro). What I am getting at is that I respect what he has to say and trust it applies to me. DPReview is nice but it gives little information to actual in-the-field handling of digitals, it is more a feature and performance list. Michael above tells you how the thing works in real world situations, I like that. He shoots RAW for anything half serious. From what I have gathered the reason is that there is extra information in a RAW over even the highest quality JPEG. This extra information comes into play when you want to adjust curves and levels via Photoshop. It is much like scanning film in that with a good quality scan there is a lot of hidden information that can be drawn out in a digital darkroom. Apart from the latest lossless JPEG format (which I don't think any dSLR supports), JPEGs always do loose data. RAW does not. In digital your RAW file is your negative and it is not something you want to skimp on. I would far rather spend more time downloading the files because they are RAW than shooting JPEG and loosing a shot. Certainly I won't always shoot RAW. I won't take cat and family photos in RAW. But landscapes, street and architecture shots that take time and thought to prepare, might as well get every bit out of the camera that I can. Lastly, here is the info from the Canon EOS 10D: 3072 x 2048, 2048 x 1360 and 1536 x 1024 24-bit JPEG and 3072 x 2048 36-bit RAW file formats. RAW files include an embedded JPEG (user selectable size and quality) The 10D actually writes a JPEG along side the RAW when you shoot, so you have the choice. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Christopher Duncan quoted: "All Corvettes are red. Everything else is just a mistake." Crikey! ain't life grand? Einstein says...
Thanks - thats a good explanation. I think it is about time there was a jpeg format with more than 24 bits (only 256 levels of any colour) so that brightness / contrast can be adjusted without showing visible effects. You can choose the pixel resolution and the compression ratio so why not choose the dynamic range as well. Personaly I prefer to take several shots and use the best rather than taking the time to get one shot perfect and then the time to adjust it. Turning on Auto bracketing takes 1 second and then the camera can adjust the exposure time and make use of the sensors full resolution giving beter results than you can get from adjusting a raw image.
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Paul Watson wrote: From what I have seen the microdrives are bigger and better but more expensive, right? Not exactly, but microdrives and CF cards have sizes up to 4GB. Paul Watson wrote: What are the other advantages or disadvantages of them, or is a flash card the better route? Thats the big $1000 question that everyone asks everywhere, and comes down to personal prefference. Flash is faster, and can better handle a rough treatment. Microdrives tends to be cheaper per megabyte, and is a bit slower. If a CF card stop functioning (a crash) then you can forget about the photos on it, from a microdrive you might be able to save some of them if you hire a data rescue company to do it, as its just a harddisk. Paul Watson wrote: I see a 1gb IBM MicroDrive for $500 and then a 1gb Hitachi for $179. Is the quality difference that big or will Hitachi be sufficient? AFAIK its the same drive, but the IBM is not in production any more and probably have an old price. Paul Watson wrote: Really, just any advise on digital camera storage would be appreciated. I suspect I will be shooting a lot and sometimes be away from a PC or laptop for a day or two. I dont like those big drives, too many eggs in one basket. Get some 512MB CF cards instead of a single 4GB (depending on how much memory you want) If one breaks, you dont loose everything when using multible smaller cards... For speed for different cameras with different cards, take a look here: http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6111[^] Paul Watson wrote: Do I have to have a MicroDrive reader to get it across to the PC or can it be transfered from the camera to the PC through the camera's connection? Get a cardreader, so much easier, and faster. The 10D only have USB 1.0, and it works through a TWAI Driver which, IMHO, sucks. Why only shooting RAW? Give JPEG a try, I almost only shoot JPEG as I find the auto whitebalance quite good on the 10D, and then dont have any reason to shoot RAW. RAW uses too much space, and takes too much work on the computer ;) - Anders Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!" My Photos[
Wow, thanks for all the info Anders, much appreciated especially since you have hands-on experience with the 10D. Good point about all my eggs in one basket. I assume that speed wise there won't be much difference between the Sandisk UltraII 1gb and the Sandisk UltraII 512mb (the Extreme carries a price premium without much performance increase), in which case maybe three of these would make a good system. Shooting RAW would give me about 190 shots over the three, or to my mind 5 rolls of 36 film. Not a lot but reasonable in the begining I guess (man I am going to get paranoid about not having loads of film). Do you notice and get frustrated when the buffer on your 10D gets full and you have to wait for it to write? Does that happen much? Most of my shooting is slow, non-burst type but occasionally I cover sports events and I would not want the 10D claming up every few seconds to write. What card reader do you recommend? (I don't have FireWire). I put all I know about Why RAW into my reply to Nigel. I hear what you are saying about less time behind the computer and more time shooting, but when the right image comes along I feel strongly that you don't want to have taken it with JPEG and then maybe, just maybe, missing out on some critical information that some level and curve processing can use. As Nigel mentions bracketing is also important. My last question is on a hand strap for the 10D, do you have one and if so which one is it? I see the Canon E-1 handstrap but it seems to only work when the 10D is fitted with the batterypack and vertical shooting handle. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Christopher Duncan quoted: "All Corvettes are red. Everything else is just a mistake." Crikey! ain't life grand? Einstein says...
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..What are the other advantages or disadvantages of them, or is a flash card the better route?.. Here we go Flash: +: Shock resistant, vibration resistant. Use less power -: Slower than microdrive Microdrive: +: Fast and cheap (around Euro 120.-) -: NOT vibration resistant. This is normally no problem for normal human use but if you do some special application like me it could be a problem. ..What on earth is going on?... Kapitalism. Search for a good reseller. Here in Europe we get it around Euro 120.- ( == $100) ...Really, just any advise... Go for a microdrive. ..Do I have to have a MicroDrive reader to get.. No. Normally you use the camera connection. bb |~ bb
Thanks Harald. Certainly cost wise the MicroDrives are far better, especially when you get to the 4gb range ($499 for a MD vs. $1000 for a CF). Alas I just read this "The 4GB Microdrive is at or near the bottom of the write speed rankings in the Canon EOS 10D" from Rob Galbraith. Ah well. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Christopher Duncan quoted: "All Corvettes are red. Everything else is just a mistake." Crikey! ain't life grand? Einstein says...
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Wow, thanks for all the info Anders, much appreciated especially since you have hands-on experience with the 10D. Good point about all my eggs in one basket. I assume that speed wise there won't be much difference between the Sandisk UltraII 1gb and the Sandisk UltraII 512mb (the Extreme carries a price premium without much performance increase), in which case maybe three of these would make a good system. Shooting RAW would give me about 190 shots over the three, or to my mind 5 rolls of 36 film. Not a lot but reasonable in the begining I guess (man I am going to get paranoid about not having loads of film). Do you notice and get frustrated when the buffer on your 10D gets full and you have to wait for it to write? Does that happen much? Most of my shooting is slow, non-burst type but occasionally I cover sports events and I would not want the 10D claming up every few seconds to write. What card reader do you recommend? (I don't have FireWire). I put all I know about Why RAW into my reply to Nigel. I hear what you are saying about less time behind the computer and more time shooting, but when the right image comes along I feel strongly that you don't want to have taken it with JPEG and then maybe, just maybe, missing out on some critical information that some level and curve processing can use. As Nigel mentions bracketing is also important. My last question is on a hand strap for the 10D, do you have one and if so which one is it? I see the Canon E-1 handstrap but it seems to only work when the 10D is fitted with the batterypack and vertical shooting handle. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Christopher Duncan quoted: "All Corvettes are red. Everything else is just a mistake." Crikey! ain't life grand? Einstein says...
Paul Watson wrote: in which case maybe three of these would make a good system. Shooting RAW would give me about 190 shots More like 225 shots ;) And 570 in JPEG High Quality. I have one of these cards, and it works great. I also have 2 Sandisk "classic" 256MB. Paul Watson wrote: Do you notice and get frustrated when the buffer on your 10D gets full and you have to wait for it to write? Almost never happens. Between your shots, when the camera is "idle" it uses time to compress the buffer and write to the card. When shooting JPEG and filling the buffer, it takes like 2 seconds before you can take a couple more shots, and 10 seconds (maybe less) before there is room for another 9 shots. The buffer is not empty, but the data in it is compressed thus making room for more space. Of course this is somewhat slower when shooting RAW, as they dont get compressed as much. And yes, RAW get compressed ;) Paul Watson wrote: What card reader do you recommend? (I don't have FireWire). I dont think there is much difference, I have a cheap Sandisk USB2, works fine. Paul Watson wrote: I hear what you are saying about less time behind the computer and more time shooting, but when the right image comes along I feel strongly that you don't want to have taken it with JPEG and then maybe, just maybe, missing out on some critical information that some level and curve processing can use. The real thing about this is that RAW is 12bit and JPEG is 8 bit. This means that sometimes you can save a blown highlight by underexposing your RAW shot, but thats not often. There is a war in the dpreview.com forums between those who shoot RAW and the JPEG people ;) But all the RAW shooters say they does it to be able to change whitebalance when postprocessing, thats the main reason. IMHO the autowhitebalance in the 10D is quite good, at least good enough for me ;) Try both, and make up your mind. BTW, to really use the 12bits from the RAW shot, you need to convert it to 16bit TIFF, and then you get pictires that takes up 36MB each. And... To edit 16 TIFF files you need Photoshop CS, and neither 7.0 nor elements can handle 16bit files ;) Think about it, you shoot 200 RAW shots, thats like 1.5GB RAW images, then you convert those to 16bit TIFF which takes up 7.03GB. Thats a lot of space. Of course you can just convert the RAW shots to JPEG, thats what I do, and it works fine as any changes I want
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Thanks - thats a good explanation. I think it is about time there was a jpeg format with more than 24 bits (only 256 levels of any colour) so that brightness / contrast can be adjusted without showing visible effects. You can choose the pixel resolution and the compression ratio so why not choose the dynamic range as well. Personaly I prefer to take several shots and use the best rather than taking the time to get one shot perfect and then the time to adjust it. Turning on Auto bracketing takes 1 second and then the camera can adjust the exposure time and make use of the sensors full resolution giving beter results than you can get from adjusting a raw image.
Nigel Savidge wrote: Turning on Auto bracketing takes 1 second and then the camera can adjust the exposure time and make use of the sensors full resolution giving beter results than you can get from adjusting a raw image. Yeah, and it makes some great shots for "blending" in photoshop to get better dynamic range ;) (if shot using a triphod) - Anders Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!" My Photos[^]
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Thanks - thats a good explanation. I think it is about time there was a jpeg format with more than 24 bits (only 256 levels of any colour) so that brightness / contrast can be adjusted without showing visible effects. You can choose the pixel resolution and the compression ratio so why not choose the dynamic range as well. Personaly I prefer to take several shots and use the best rather than taking the time to get one shot perfect and then the time to adjust it. Turning on Auto bracketing takes 1 second and then the camera can adjust the exposure time and make use of the sensors full resolution giving beter results than you can get from adjusting a raw image.
You are quite right in that bracketing is a very useful thing to do. When I shoot Velvia or Provia I do it for any scenes that might push the range of slide. Mind if I ask what camera system you use and how long you have been at it? Always nice to find other CPians interested in photography (though ones that use film are rare). regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Christopher Duncan quoted: "All Corvettes are red. Everything else is just a mistake." Crikey! ain't life grand? Einstein says...
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Hmm, maybe we do need a hardware forum :-D Lenses I know, film I know, tripods and other bits I know. But I know zip about digital camera storage. By that I mean out in the field while you are shooting, not back home when you archive your shots. I know you get the compact flash cards and you get the IBM MicroDrives. From what I have seen the microdrives are bigger and better but more expensive, right? What are the other advantages or disadvantages of them, or is a flash card the better route? Also what make? I see a 1gb IBM MicroDrive for $500 and then a 1gb Hitachi for $179. Is the quality difference that big or will Hitachi be sufficient? Actually that bit confuses me as Hitachi bought the IBM MicroDrive division it seems, so why the discrepancy? For $450 one can buy a 4gb Hitachi. What on earth is going on? Really, just any advise on digital camera storage would be appreciated. I suspect I will be shooting a lot and sometimes be away from a PC or laptop for a day or two. I would be storing mainly in RAW format, so larger files. It would need to work with a Canon 10D (which supports FAT32 and so can go beyond 2gb). The last thing I want to ask is; Do I have to have a MicroDrive reader to get it across to the PC or can it be transfered from the camera to the PC through the camera's connection? thanks all. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Christopher Duncan quoted: "All Corvettes are red. Everything else is just a mistake." Crikey! ain't life grand? Einstein says...
I've put my CF through the laundry in my pants pocket. Works fine. Also, no moving parts, less power consumption. Let's see a MicroDrive do that. "For all of our languages, we cannot communicate" - Christy Moore, Natives
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You are quite right in that bracketing is a very useful thing to do. When I shoot Velvia or Provia I do it for any scenes that might push the range of slide. Mind if I ask what camera system you use and how long you have been at it? Always nice to find other CPians interested in photography (though ones that use film are rare). regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Christopher Duncan quoted: "All Corvettes are red. Everything else is just a mistake." Crikey! ain't life grand? Einstein says...
As Anders sugested, bracketing can be more useful in digital than film since you can combine several exposures later using the computer - getting the combination to look natural is not so easy. Since you asked, I started in digital photography 5 years ago, in the early days of digital and haven't used a film camera since. I currently use an Olympus C40(D40). Not quite in the same class as your Canon but I can't fit a 10D in my pocket & so generaly wouldn't have it with me when I wanted it. Also when I bought it, Canons best offering was actually lower resolution, the compacts seem to be loosing ground to the SLRs now though. It doesn't take microdrives so I use flash cards, I plug it into the USB to download rather than bothering to take the card out and put it in a reader then swap it back when finished. I know someone who has a usb hard drive with a card slot in - it copies all the pictures off the card to its hard disk when you put one in(no computer required). Since it is a laptop size hard disk there is lots of storage but is still small enough to take on holiday etc. I also know someone who has a microdrive but tends not to use it since it drains the bateries faster than flash. Having got the photos onto your computer, the next problem is storing them. I find CD/DVD s are too small so keep them on hard disk - what do others do?
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As Anders sugested, bracketing can be more useful in digital than film since you can combine several exposures later using the computer - getting the combination to look natural is not so easy. Since you asked, I started in digital photography 5 years ago, in the early days of digital and haven't used a film camera since. I currently use an Olympus C40(D40). Not quite in the same class as your Canon but I can't fit a 10D in my pocket & so generaly wouldn't have it with me when I wanted it. Also when I bought it, Canons best offering was actually lower resolution, the compacts seem to be loosing ground to the SLRs now though. It doesn't take microdrives so I use flash cards, I plug it into the USB to download rather than bothering to take the card out and put it in a reader then swap it back when finished. I know someone who has a usb hard drive with a card slot in - it copies all the pictures off the card to its hard disk when you put one in(no computer required). Since it is a laptop size hard disk there is lots of storage but is still small enough to take on holiday etc. I also know someone who has a microdrive but tends not to use it since it drains the bateries faster than flash. Having got the photos onto your computer, the next problem is storing them. I find CD/DVD s are too small so keep them on hard disk - what do others do?
Nigel Savidge wrote: getting the combination to look natural is not so easy. Most often its quite easy ;) http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/digital-blending.shtml[^] Look after the method he calls "The Layer Mask" :) Nigel Savidge wrote: Having got the photos onto your computer, the next problem is storing them. I find CD/DVD s are too small so keep them on hard disk - what do others do? I keep them on a mirror'ed drive on my server, and also have backup on DVD. When I dont have enough space, I'll get new harddisks ;) - Anders Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!" My Photos[^]
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I've put my CF through the laundry in my pants pocket. Works fine. Also, no moving parts, less power consumption. Let's see a MicroDrive do that. "For all of our languages, we cannot communicate" - Christy Moore, Natives
Richard Jones wrote: Let's see a MicroDrive do that. I dont remember the link to the website, but they found a microdrive in a totally broken-to-pieces camera, in the ruins from 9-11. They actually saved most of the photos, I dont think that would have been possible from a CF card, as there had been fire in the camera too. - Anders Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!" My Photos[^]
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Thanks Harald. Certainly cost wise the MicroDrives are far better, especially when you get to the 4gb range ($499 for a MD vs. $1000 for a CF). Alas I just read this "The 4GB Microdrive is at or near the bottom of the write speed rankings in the Canon EOS 10D" from Rob Galbraith. Ah well. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Christopher Duncan quoted: "All Corvettes are red. Everything else is just a mistake." Crikey! ain't life grand? Einstein says...
I made myself some tests with a Fuji S2 pro and found that the 1GB microdrive is faster. Its maybe also a camera issue which storage is faster. Since we sell a whole lot of Fuji S2 and no customer has complained about the speed I think I measured right. bb |~ bb
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..What are the other advantages or disadvantages of them, or is a flash card the better route?.. Here we go Flash: +: Shock resistant, vibration resistant. Use less power -: Slower than microdrive Microdrive: +: Fast and cheap (around Euro 120.-) -: NOT vibration resistant. This is normally no problem for normal human use but if you do some special application like me it could be a problem. ..What on earth is going on?... Kapitalism. Search for a good reseller. Here in Europe we get it around Euro 120.- ( == $100) ...Really, just any advise... Go for a microdrive. ..Do I have to have a MicroDrive reader to get.. No. Normally you use the camera connection. bb |~ bb