Panasonic FZ30 With 2GB SD Card?

Does anyone have any experience using the FZ30 with a 2GB SD card? (I'd be
flabbergasted if it supported 4GB.)

Does a larger memory card run the battery down faster?

TNX,

Nemo

I use a 2 gig card in my FZ30. Works great. You get about 500 shots at
highest quality and resolution and about 25 minutes of video. You'll want a
card reader cause the camera is slow uploading compared to a reader. For
example. 30 shots at full resolution upload from the camera in about 4 to 5
minutes or about 10 seconds using a card reader.

I use a Patriot card. They are high speed-133x, I believe.
ed

"Nemo Oudeheis" wrote in message
news
Does anyone have any experience using the FZ30 with a 2GB SD card? (I'd
be
flabbergasted if it supported 4GB.)

Does a larger memory card run the battery down faster?

TNX,

Nemo

I realize this question seems a bit naive. I am not an electrical engineer,
but I understand that in the case of DRAM, you have to keep the entire
assemblage of memory chips refreshed. The SD card is presumably flash
memory, but I was unwilling to assume without knowledge that it was not
somehow necessary to light up the whole chip. If, for example, you had
erased a block of shots, and the camera was examining the file system on the
card for memory to be reused, etc. The drain might be trivial, but who
knows?

Another question might be QA. I have read somewhere that the early batches
of 2GB cards were flakey.

--Nemo

"Diamond Dave" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 20:10:04 -0500, "Nemo Oudeheis"
wrote:

Does a larger memory card run the battery down faster?

Only if the gears aren't aligned properly, that throws off the drive chain
and
the binding causes excessive power draw.

--



"Diamond Dave" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 20:10:04 -0500, "Nemo Oudeheis"
wrote:

Does a larger memory card run the battery down faster?

Only if the gears aren't aligned properly, that throws off the drive chain
and
the binding causes excessive power draw.

Therefore you have to lubricate the drive chain.

Nemo Oudeheis wrote:
I realize this question seems a bit naive. I am not an electrical engineer,
but I understand that in the case of DRAM, you have to keep the entire
assemblage of memory chips refreshed. The SD card is presumably flash
memory, but I was unwilling to assume without knowledge that it was not
somehow necessary to light up the whole chip. If, for example, you had
erased a block of shots, and the camera was examining the file system on the
card for memory to be reused, etc. The drain might be trivial, but who
knows?

Yes, it is flash memory. It takes no power to maintain the stored bits.
The standby power needed to keep the embedded controller alive is
probably trivial. A quick Google query turned up data on the power
consumed by various operations, but nothing on standby power consumption
or whether it increases with the size of the array. The card's
controller takes care of managing free blocks, since it needs to
spread the wear over all the blocks in the array. The camera does not
ever examine the filesystem for blocks to be reused

I'm not an EE either, but the data available with small effort suggests
that any relationship between card capacity and power consumption is so
trivial as to be not worth worrying about. Certainly, the camera's
processor consumes much more power in monitoring its universe than
is used by an idle memory card.

Paul Allen

Thanks for the info. "The only stupid question is the one you don't ask."
Of course, there is such a thing as a stupid person....
"Paul Allen" "paul dot l dot allen at comcast dot net" wrote in message
...
Nemo Oudeheis wrote:
I realize this question seems a bit naive. I am not an electrical
engineer, but I understand that in the case of DRAM, you have to keep the
entire assemblage of memory chips refreshed. The SD card is presumably
flash memory, but I was unwilling to assume without knowledge that it was
not somehow necessary to light up the whole chip. If, for example, you
had erased a block of shots, and the camera was examining the file system
on the card for memory to be reused, etc. The drain might be trivial,
but who knows?

Yes, it is flash memory. It takes no power to maintain the stored bits.
The standby power needed to keep the embedded controller alive is
probably trivial. A quick Google query turned up data on the power
consumed by various operations, but nothing on standby power consumption
or whether it increases with the size of the array. The card's
controller takes care of managing free blocks, since it needs to
spread the wear over all the blocks in the array. The camera does not
ever examine the filesystem for blocks to be reused

I'm not an EE either, but the data available with small effort suggests
that any relationship between card capacity and power consumption is so
trivial as to be not worth worrying about. Certainly, the camera's
processor consumes much more power in monitoring its universe than
is used by an idle memory card.

Paul Allen

Panasonic FZ30 documentation says max SD size is 2GB. Also recommends SD
with speeds above 10MB/s which is sometimes called 66 X times speed or more
for video mode.

Jay.

Is that because the largest Panasonic made at the time was that size?

Jay wrote:

Panasonic FZ30 documentation says max SD size is 2GB. Also recommends SD
with speeds above 10MB/s which is sometimes called 66 X times speed or more
for video mode.

Jay.

Maybe it is because of FZ30 algorithm for creating folders and
naming/numbering the photos it writes to the SD card.

Jay.

"measekite" wrote in message
et...
Is that because the largest Panasonic made at the time was that size?

Jay wrote:

Panasonic FZ30 documentation says max SD size is 2GB. Also recommends SD
with speeds above 10MB/s which is sometimes called 66 X times speed or
more for video mode.

Jay.