 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Snowy, I've got the waterproof Pentax Optio which also has an internal zoom. Had it a couple of years and found it ideal for putting in my pocket when skiing and not having to worry about it getting wet. Battery life in cold temperatures has never been a problem. Mine is 5 MP and 3 x optical zoom but I think later versions have more of both.
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I took my Sony Cybershot W50 and it worked fine out there last week in Ischgl. Had no problems with the battery and i never needed to charge it the whole week and i took about 200 photos.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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The Fujifilm F30 is a cracking good compact. It has a 3x external zoom, but still powers up in about 1 second. Virtually no shutter lag either.
More importantly for cold conditions, the battery has the longest run time of all current compacts (almost 600 shots in normal conditions). It also has the best low light image sensor in its class, giving genuine noise free images at ISO 800. This is almost unheard of for a compact.
I bought one a few months ago as a back-up to my DSLR and I'm hugely impressed. It's made my previous back-up camera (trusty Canon G2) pretty much redundant.
Other than that, I'd consider the current IXUS range. All Canon cameras are basically very good quality.
See detailed reviews of all the contenders on this excellent website.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/
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Used to have a Canon - great camera. The batteries do have a limited life, and from experience you should only use Canon replacements - the cheap ones don't last as long.
Now have a Pentax Optio A10. Great camera, apart from the shutter lag.
...but I managed to take about 100 pics and 120MB of video on it (along with a bit of viewing), and charged the battery once during the week long trip.
It wasn't even in an inside pocket.
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Snowy, Where do you keep the camera? If it's in a bag or trouser pocket the cold will adversely affect the battery life very quickly, try keeping it in an inside jacket pocket. Also what battery does it take, you'll get better life from using the best quility rechargable AA battery's; this has the advantage that you can take quite a few spares and recharge them overnight in your room.
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How old is the battery, and how much use has it seen ie Number recharges.
It may that the battery just needs replacing.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Snowy, leaving the battery charged won't really cause too big a problem, it will just drain away slowly.
Batteries have a finite life, and using them in the cold will drain them quickly. (as will constantly viewing pics/video).
Try the spare battery in the camera. It might need a full charge first of all.
When you're skiing, it's best to keep the camera inside your jacket (i.e. next to your body) as that will help keep the battery warm, charged and happy.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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It's generally best to remove camera batteries when stored unused for long periods. Otherwise they slowly drain down and ultimately die if left uncharged for ages (By which I mean several months or more).
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Recently bought the Canon IXUS 850. It's very compact and has a 3x wide angle lens (28-105mm equivalent, rather than 35-115 more typical of compact cameras) with optical image stabilisation. The wider than average angle makes it good for landscapes and indoor shots. Start up time and shutter lag are both very short, much closer in performance to my SLR than any compact camera I've tried. It has a 7.1 megapixel sensor and the picture quality seems pretty impressive to my amateur eye. You can buy a waterproof case for it which allows you to take in into the pool or snorkelling. It's only drawback is the rather underpowered flash, but that seems typical of very small cameras. Battery life seems very good, especially as you can turn of the LCD and use the optical viewfinder to frame your photos.
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Hmm, interesting rob@rar.
I'm ideally looking for something fairly waterproof so I can stick it in my pocket without a case. The reason I say that is that the time it takes me to:
1. take a glove off,
2. take the camera out of my pocket
3. turn the camera on
4. take the photo
5. turn the camera off
6. return camera to pocket
7. put glove back on
8. rearrange pole strap.
As much as my impatient other half loves to see photos at the end of our hols, he hates standing round for a second longer than he has to.  Therefore, introducing the step "remove camera from case" and "put camera back in case" might tip over the edge (in more ways than one!).
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You know it makes sense.
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rob@rar, Another very good choice, especially with the 28 mm lens. Bit pricey though for a compact.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Snowy, Don't worry too much about waterproofing. It will severely restrict your choice of camera. If you keep it in an inside pocket, it won't get wet anyway. Alternatively, you can always pop it in one of these and just keep it around your neck:-
http://www.ellis-brigham.com/cgi-bin/psProdDet.cgi/265703||@c@bAquapac|0|user|1,0,0,1|5|
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Poster: A snowHead
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A couple of observations:
- All NiMh batteries 'drain' when not in use..... a set of AA's will typically go flat in around a month.
- Age and cold will reduce a batteries capacity, as already stated.
- lack of use probably doesn't make much difference - a four week old battery will perform better than a 4 year old battery that had 1 weeks use per year...
- a faulty voltage regulator in your camera can manifest itself as 'poor battery' performance - the camera has to measure the battery voltage, and rechargeables don't have the progressive voltage drop that disposables do... so the camera's voltage measuring circuitry has to be more sensitive.... in short, if it goes wrong, it can appear as if the battery is flat, even if it isn't.
- NiMh batteries benefit from 'cycling' every so often; e.g. after every 5-10 uses, run them down to 'flat', and then put them through a full charge cycle. Whilst they don't suffer from the 'memory' effect of NiCd's, they do benefit from a bit of forced discipline (batteries are fairly basic chemical pots)
- how cold was it in Whistler? 0c is one thing, but -20c will really sap the juice
as for memory cards: it's a good idea to _format_ the card (in your camera, not your computer) after every few uses.... out of habit, I now do mine every time it goes in the cam. It's possible to get fragmentation on your memory card in a similar way to fragmentation on a hard-disk, and formatting can reduce this.
Remember that if you 'delete' pictures off your card, they aren't really deleted, it's just the index thats deleted, and sometimes the camera/card driver gets confused when storing new pictures, tries to squeeze them where they don't fit, and the result is corrupted images.
(I learnt this the hard way on a 12 month trip, and lost about 50 pix due to this issue.... although out of 10,000, not such a big problem)
the only other battery tech option is LiIon, as used in most laptops.... has the highest energy density, but will still only last about 3 years (You can buy AA LiIon cells, and it may be that some compact camera's use LiIon cells as well....
both dpreview and steves-digicams are great sites.....
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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"but will still only last about 3 years"
Which is about the lifetime of a well used compact digital anyway.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| uktrailmonster wrote: |
| rob@rar, Another very good choice, especially with the 28 mm lens. Bit pricey though for a compact. |
The wide angle lens makes a big difference for the majority of photos I take (people shots, often indoors, or panoramic 'snow report' type photos). I paid £265 for it from Bristol Cameras.
Snowy It's not waterproof itself, but I've never found that to be an issue when skiing. When I'm on the slopes the camera lives in an external pocket on my ski jacket (inside pocket if very cold to keep the battery a bit warmer, although sometimes condensation issues then). When I want to take a photo it's whip off one glove, turn it on, click and away. Pretty straightforward really.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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second all the advice on replacement batteries
I had an Ixus 400 too - liked it but lost it half way down a Canadian mountain when it fell out of my pocket. I've now got one of the really small Sony cameras (very thin - sort of credit card in shape but bigger) and it's excellent (5MP, decent shutter lag, big screen). The thing I like most is that you can wear it comfortably on its cord around your neck and it powers up by flipping the lens cover off which you can do with ski gloves on. Basically all I need to do is pull down my jacket zip a few inches, pull it out, flip the lens cover down and shoot - perfect for skiing.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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rob@rar, I've got the same camera and bought the waterproof case for last summer's holiday snorkelling and scuba. It was excellent but did make the whole thing rather bulky, so, like last year, I will be doing as you do and keeping in an outside pocket (which is still reasonably warm but helps minimise condensation problems)
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Snowy, Pentax and Olympus make splashproof cameras.
I have a Pentax Optio which I am able to use with my gloves on.
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A few random observations:
I have an Ixus 400 and the batteries seem fine, but we always take 2 fully charged. The only problem we have is that intermittently the pictures get corrupted which can be annoying. We tried different memory cards, and reformatting.
A tip from the cycling world: beware putting cameras and phones in chest pockets, depending on the position. If you fall on your front they can break a rib. Don't now if this has ever happened to a skier/boarder.
If your camera has an optical viewfinder, which I find is better in bright snow, then switch off the LCD screen as this uses most of hte battery power.
The fastest person in a group should take the photos - gives them something to do while they hang around waiting for the others. 
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Really agree with that last sentiment! I have many good action photos of all my friends now!!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Paul-B, I believe the "fall on the camera" accident has been reported elsewhere on snowHeads in the distant past...
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Snowy, I agree with a lot of what has been said. I have had an IXUS and its batteries were appallingly cold sensitive, with replacement non-branded ones even worse. I now have a sanyo xacti video camera which has some cold issues, and a Sony Cybershot 120 5mp camera which doesnt. The batteries on that are so good (200 mins record or 360 mins play time) that I now carry one spare battery and don't bother taking the charger even for a 2 week holiday. I stash it in the camera pocket on the belt of my heli pro sac and so far it has coped with a fair bit of snow on it.
Low res version of something pretty from a week or so back
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Yes I have an Xacti as well, great for video where you wouldn't want the bulk of a video camera. Stills are fine in bright conditions. The only problem is a lack of optical viewfinder which is a real difficulty in bright sun/snow.
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FAQ
