On 5 Jan 2006 at 0:24, Glen wrote: > I also didn't complain when I had to buy an SD card for my Pentax *istDS, > instead of using the XD form factor I was used to. To me, that would seem > to almost as productive as complaining that the *istDS wouldn't accept 8x10 > film holders. ;)
I came from having several cameras that used CF cards and I'd guess that one of my cards cost nearly as much as you paid for your *ist DS body which was probably half as much as a lot of use paid for our *ist D bodies. I want value from my purchases and having to change media types regularly isn't attractive, especially when the piece of kit is far from outmoded and has plenty of usable life. Then again I hold onto my cars and mobile phone longer than most people seem to these days too. That said I'd be happily with a body that offered CF and SD compatibility, it wouldn't be unreasonable, my old Oly E-10 had CF and SM slots. > Also, Instead of worrying about the capacity of flash cards, I would rather > have Pentax make a camera which could be connected directly to a $200 (or > less) portable battery-powered hard drive. I just don't see why the > portable storage solutions currently on the market have to cost $500 and > up. For that price, I could get a notebook computer! A DS3 with an onboard > SATA connector would be sweet! :) I could even put a hard drive in a case > and arrange for battery power myself, if Pentax only made a camera with a > connection for an external hard drive, and gave the camera's firmware the > proper programming to be able to dump the contents of the flash card to the > external drive. Being able to browse the contents of the hard drive, via > the camera's LCD panel would also be a nice bonus. :) Somehow I don't see that happening, about the $500 external drive I assume you mean US$500, that's a heck of a lot of cash. A CompactDrive with a 80GB HDD should cost no more than about US$290 and US$420 should get you a 120GB unit. SATA or 3.5" PATA drives aren't really suitable for incorporating in portable devices, for one the drive aren't designed to handle the knocks that they are likely to be subjected to and secondly they are power hungry and require dual voltage supply. > So, I'm not worried about which type of card the next Pentax uses. I'm just > worried about dumping the contents of the cards when they eventually fill > up while shooting on location. See above. Rob Studdert HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA Tel +61-2-9554-4110 UTC(GMT) +10 Hours [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/ Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998
