Canon EOS300D

Evening,

I am complete newcomer to digital photography and currently have a Canon EOS300.

I'm planning purchasing the 300D with 18/55 lens and 1G Hitachi Microdrive for £933. Have no worries about the camera or lens having had Canon for a number of years but know nothing about microdrives whatsoever.

Is the Hitachi a reputable and reliable model. Do I really need a 1G version ?? Is £933 for the camera lens and microdrive a good price ?

Does the microdrive sit within the camera ??

Apologies for what might appear a "daft" question but I do plan to pop into Jessops tomorrow to have a look at camera and pick their brains but would apprecaite any views you experts out there may have before then.

Cheers,

Juiceloose.

 

Best price for camera & lens I've seen is just below £800 so with the Microdrive, your price is not far away from that. Do you need a Microdrive? Depends on whether you need to take loads of pictures in one go before returning to a computer. I use a 512 mb CF card without problems (and carry a 128 mb spare from my previous camera). Write times are faster on Microdrives over standard CF so if you need that (sports photography for instance) then gofor a MD.

No idea if Hitachi is as good as IBM.

A microdrive fits into the CF slot

 

BTW Jessops will price match UK web sites so print off the page and take it with you to the shop & you could have the camera today

 

Sounds like a decent combination - I'm using a 300D with an IBM 1GB MD + a 340MB MD as a backup.

Hitachi has purchased IBMs hard drive division, therefore as far as I know the products should be identical. If you end up using RAW mode (which is quite likely if you want to adjust various picture aspects on your PC) then I would highly recommend getting a 1GB drive - it isn't a lot different in cost over a decent high speed 512 Compact flash card, so might as well enjoy the extra space!!

Admittedly microdrives are supposed to use up more battery power than a flash card, but I can't say that this has caused me a problem yet (could always get the battery grip and a 2nd battery if you wanted.....)

I suggest you get a USB2 / Cardbus adapter for the MD rather than using the camera to transfer piccies to your PC - 1GB's worth of files at 12Mbit/Sec takes too long for me!!

Good luck with your decision.