Experiences with Microdrives in UW DRebel?

Just got my Digital Rebel this weekend, going to order the housing this week. I'm temporarily using the 256M CF card from my S230, and was planning to get a 2Gig Microdrive for the DReb; when I purchased the camera this weekend, though, the salesguy was saying microdrives aren't really his recommendation due to speed and stability/durability concerns.

I was wondering if anyone on this forum uses a microdrive in their DRebel - particularly as I'll be doing a lot of diving here in the US Pacific Northwest, where the water temp gets down to the low 40s (F) in the winter. Any feedback/anecdotal evidence on the speed of writing to the disk (large/fine JPEG and RAW)? I've checked out Rob Galbraith's page on EOS 300D and CF speeds (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_pag...p?cid=6007-6425).

Thanks,

-Chris

I've used the MD in the PNW in BC and found the MD to be significantly faster that the regular CF card I have. No problems using it in the housing or the temperatures with my old CP5000.

As for stability I think in a housing it is safe from being dropped etc.

Recently someone posted a chart of write times for the various cards as a comparision. You may want to search for that link to see the actual tested times.

I'vw been diving with the dreb+ 1 Gb microdrive and had no problems. But then again, our waters are always warm.The speed has certainly not been a concern. I am planning on getting a bigger card... as soon as I can get my hands on one of those$199 muvos I'll cannibalize it. I say go for it!

I have not gotten my DRebel house and wet yet but I have been using two Microdrives in it the last few months. Right now I have the Hitachi 1GB and 2GB drives and think that they work quite well. All told I have a little more than 8700 images shot on these two microdrives without a problem.

I have heard that they are slower than many of the highspeed CF's out there but I have not done any comparisons. Most of my shooting doesn't require high speed write times, especially macro with a flash/strobe as you have to pause to let the flash recycle. The microdrives are definitely less expensive then their CF equivalents.

Thansk for the advice, guys - I will go ahead and purchase a microdrive, then, because I want to use RAW for underwater photos and need all the space I can get.

Marjo, FYI the 4-gig MD has to be formatted as FAT32, which apparently slows it down over the 1GB, particularly if you format it with 4K clusters instead of 32k clusters (given the usage pattern of a digital camera, I would do 32k clusters anyway).

Microdrives are fine - I was using one in my 10D - until they break, which mine did (possibly by squeezing the casing whilst removing it from the camera - theyare apparently susceptible to this). So if you buy one, you must treat it nicely.

I use my 2 Microdrives (one IBM one Hitachi) in my S40/S50 and my D60 above and under Water and I am happy with them. Overwater it is a little to slow for me when i do picture "bursts" but under water they are fast enough.

I don't even treat the nicely ;-) I don't throw them around but i don't use satin gloves to handle them.

Simon

Additional one of them even survived the flood that killed my S40 without any problems!

I was wondering if anyone on this forum uses a microdrive in their DRebel - particularly as I'll be doing a lot of diving here in the US Pacific Northwest, where the water temp gets down to the low 40s (F) in the winter.  Any feedback/anecdotal evidence on the speed of writing to the disk (large/fine JPEG and RAW)?  

Thanks,

-Chris

Hey Chris,

I am in Seattle as well, and I've been shooting with a 1G microdrive for two years now without a single problem. The cycle time on my strobes is usually slower than the write speed (I always shoot RAW) on my Canon D60, so I've never missed a shot because of writing out the buffer in the camera...

Fighting bouyancy, current, swell, and slow cycling strobes, yes. Filling the buffer on the camera? No.

And if you shoot JPG, I'd be super surprised to see the buffer fill ever.

As far as reliability, I've dropped mine several times, wiped more than a drop or two of salt water off of it, and it's been going strong for two years, probably a couple hundred dives.

Just my experience...

-jong

That's awesome to hear. I do intend to shoot RAW, underwater at least. My 2G Hitachi is already on its way...