memory for Pentax istD

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxistd/ for info on the istD (check out page 9 under File Writing Time to see how many picts you can get on a 512MB card, it depends on the quality you choose. Example: you can get 34 RAW photos or 119 of the largest JPEG photos on a 512MB card) Hope this helps.

(P.S. I got my hands on the Pentax istD, and I have to say its a pretty good camera. It has the same type of feel/comfort as my 10D. Also since it uses CR-V3 batteries, you may want to look into the new CR-V3 rechargables that are hitting the market in a month or so to cut costs. One thing I really like about the istD is the fact that it can use the Pentax Medium Format lenses (with adapter), it retains all metering, the only thing you lose is the autofocus. Some photos I took of the istD with a medium format lens are on my PMA page, http://homepage.mac.com/summergirl007/PhotoAlbum18.html Good Luck with Pentax istD, im sure your going to love it.)

My one has a 2.2 Gigabyte microdrive which takes 150 RAW-pics. Sometimes with rather low NiMhs it looses al data.

Stay away from the Magicstor drives. I had mine for a month and it died without any warning while shooting an important event. All the pictures were lost, and the Magicstor wanted me to ship it to Hong Kong for repair. I called ComputerGiants.com, where I bought it, and they were kind enough to issue a full refund immediately. I have since switched to a Lexar CF and have been very happy. I would recommend CF cards over microdrives, as they are faster, and use much less power.

Also, rechargeable CRV3 are not required, as the *ist D takes rechargeable AA batteries, which are much cheaper and have given me good performance. On one set of rechargeable Duracell 2050mh batteries I have been able to shoot over 700 JPG images, with two dumps to a laptop, in one day, without getting close to the batteries going out. With a microdrive I was lucky to get 200 images and one dump to the PC without the camera batteries running out.

Another note, a 1GB flash card will give you 70 RAW images, or 230 high quality JPEG images. What I've found with the *ist D is if I manually set the white-balance setting to correctly match my shooting environment, I get great results with JPEG. If you are unsure about the white balance, or if the camera is set to auto white balance, I would recommend shooting in RAW. This allows you to change white balance settings, saturation, and other camera data on the PC using the Pentax supplied software later.

All in all I have been EXTREMELY happy with the *ist D. I have played around on my friends Nikon D100 (which uses the same CCD from Sony) and I believe that the color accuracy is much better. In addition, the camera feel is great. All the buttons seem to be well placed and easy to find, and metering is usually accurate. I always bracket my important shots, and 99 out of 100 times the first shot is the best, and the bracketed shots are discarded. Good luck and enjoy!

My Magicstor 2.2GB died today after less than 1600 RAW-pics.