microdrive and battery consumption

I shoot an E-20 in the Titan housing. I've been considering purchase of a microdrive, but in the E-20 manual it states that you can only use the microdrive with the large external battery pack that would not fit in the housing. Is this a recommendation, or will the microdrive not operate using my E-20 with 1800ma NiMH batteries. To those of you that are using the microdrive in this or other cameras, how much battery time do you get compared to using just a CF card?

Kasey

I'm pretty sure I posted this here before, but I did a test with my E20 and Microdrive. Used a fresh set of 1600mHa batteries.

Shooting raw mode, I filled the Microdrive (105 shots), about half of them w/LCD on. I then reviewed the shots twice and deleted half of them before the batteries died.

If you're like me, and change batteries after every dive, it should not be a problem.

Richard

That seems like more battery time than I get with my CF. I use auto review, so the LCD is on for only a short time, and I even set the camera to sleep in 1 min, so it sleeps between subjects. I'm luucky if I get 70min dive time out of the system.

I have a 1Gb microdrive + E-20 and spend a full day taking 50-60 pics (on land), review them, delete etc without changing batteries. I was anxious like you but never had a problem with battery.

A little OT, but I don't shoot with anything except Lexar CF - especially above water where speed matters.

I get at least 300 shots with a single battery. Having said that, there's really no reason to risk having the battery die on a dive. Pop in a new one before you go out.