CompactFlash cards

Not sure how large a CompactFlash memory can go into the A-100. I’ll clearly have to take a couple of units with me. There doesn’t seem to be a big difference in price between 4GB and 8GB (about $30).

I’ll probably start with a 1 GB module. That will let me play with the camera. Then I’ll watch the prices between the 4 & 8 modules.

I’m assuming Antarctica will be a lot like the Galapagos in terms of wildlife photo opportunities. We went to Japan-China-Germany on a 6 week trip, shot almost 35 rolls of film. Galapagos was only 11 days, but we shot 28 rolls. We used a mixture of 24/36 exposures. So say it averaged 30 per roll. Galapagos yielded 840 shots.

We will be on this trip for 21 days, not counting travel out and back. So, potentially, 1680 pictures. If I use the Medium quality setting (about 5.6 Megapixels) the file sizes would be 2.3 MB. This would require 3.86 GB of memory (actually there is a 10% overhead which works out to a 4 GB module).

Now, what I don’t know is the ratio of good to crummy pictures. I took a number of photos of iguanas and blue footed boobies. Not all of them were worth scanning or keeping. One advantage of a digital camera is the review and delete functions.

I know I’ll be using a higher quality for some shots, in particular any good sunsets. I’m looking forward to getting an evening shot with icebergs and a setting sun. Some of these I will want as an enlargement, not the standard 4x6 prints