new idea? sleep mode.

[Denis Buhot]

As for the Red drive, I'm pretty sure the disks remain spinning (so they can record without having to ramp up speed), but there's no other activity going on until you hit record or playback. I didn't notice much drain when I was using it this weekend for timelapse. Seemed pretty reasonable. If you're worried about that though when you're waiting awhile, you can always "eject" the Red drive and plug it back in when you're ready to start shooting.

thanks, very interesting ! Does "ejecting" the drive require some physical operation (such as disconnecting a cable), or is it purely executing a command in a menu ?
Meanwhile I took it from Jarred that disconnecting evf/lcd would reduce power drain by about 10%, thus allowing batteries to last 10% longer. Won't suffice, I fear...

 

[Isaac Babcock]

I was shooting sandhill cranes and fox pups today. I don't know half of what I'm doing with this camera yet (day one), but the image looks pretty impressive to my eyes.

BUT....60-80 second start up is a long long time... I know I was for-warned, I can't complain.

But the fox pups only came out of their den 3 times today, about 2-3 hours apart (yes, I shut off the camera in between). 6 pups came out of the den, nursed from the female, and returned to the den before the camera was completely booted. I never got a single shot of the pups today, they were never out for long enough to boot the camera and shoot. So goes day one hiding out near a den...painful...

It has been stated before clearly, so I have no right to complain about boot-up time. BUT if you need a camera to shoot fast developing wildlife behavior, THIS MAY NOT BE THE CAMERA FOR YOU - at least at this time.

Meanwhile I keep hoping for a sleep function. - or for some ability to predict 80 seconds prior to wildlife behavior occurring.

I sure hope this moves up the priority list.

 

[Denis Buhot]

ISo goes day one hiding out near a den...painful...

I sure hope this moves up the priority list.

Isaac, you sure have all my sympathy ! Great quality remaining virtual, with no real images captured is frustrating, especially when it comes to wildlife. On the one hand, one might assume that a sleep mode has to be a hardly if at all solvable problem, or else it would have been adressed already. On the other hand, Jim himself said "can't you wait until the feature is enabled". He proved much too wise never to change his mind/reconsider a decision... including to our benefit... and he proved obviously too wise and dedicated to raise dangerous expectations. Besides, he seems to have some interest in wildlife shooting. Hope is a reasonable attitude...Thanks for your feedback, anyway, and good luck with your current work !

 

[Gunleik Groven]

There are dual batteryplates out there. I'll get one...

Then you can keep rolling while changing batteries

 

[Martin Weiss]

And it is not only wildlife where this is crucial. ENG and documentary isn't feasible with a boot-up time of more than a few seconds.

 

[Steve Phillipps]

Isaac, how far a trek is it to these locations? If not far I'd consider a PAG Belt, that should keep it powered up all day. Of course if you're going far and/or on your own then it's not really an option but I know that a lot of locations entail driving then just walking a reasonably short distance from the car to your setup point. This was why I quizzed the RED team about leaving the camera powered up to see if there was a problem with doing this and Jarred said that he'd had one on non-stop for about 5 months with no probs.
Better luck tomorrow!
Steve