Couple of Questions on G9

[manrico Scremin]

I'm new to digital photography although I've done a lot of film photography.  I've just bought my first digital camera, a Canon G9 and have a couple of questions:

1. Is there any battery that performs in the cold better than the standard one?  I took the camera skiing yesterday and it was hopeless.  It obviously doesn't like the cold even though it was only about -5 degrees C.

2. Is there a way of telling how much memory is left on the memory card?  I couldn't seem to find a way of telling this from the user manual.

Thanks.

[walter.sk]

Congratulations on getting your new G9.  The battery for the G9 may need to be fully discharged and recharged several times before reaching its full strength.  As far as short life in cold temperatures, this is common for camera batteries.  

If I were going to shoot in cold weather frequently, I would buy 2 extra batteries, and keep them in an inner pocket where they stay warm because of body heat.  I would keep the camera tucked inside my jacket between shots, and before the battery has a chance of getting too cold, I would replace it with one of the fresh batteries and put the used one in another pocket.  Just sitting and warming up may allow the battery to come back to a fuller charge.

Another possibility is the AC adaptor kit, at the following link.  It might be easy to take the cable and DC coupler that provide input into the camera, and improvise something that you could connect to the battery terminals, using a long cable.  That way you could keep the battery in your pocket.  There also may be an external battery pack by a company such as Quantum, that you might be able to use for the same purpose.

Concerning the amount of memory left, you can go into your menus and select the type of information that appears on the LCD.  You can get an estimate of the shots remaining on the card, which will depend on the compression and size of the file type you are using.  While this is just an estimate, it changes as you shoot.  It often underrepresents the number of shots possible, but I never heard of it overestimating.


Canon AC Adaptor

I'm new to digital photography although I've done a lot of film photography.  I've just bought my first digital camera, a Canon G9 and have a couple of questions:

1. Is there any battery that performs in the cold better than the standard one?  I took the camera skiing yesterday and it was hopeless.  It obviously doesn't like the cold even though it was only about -5 degrees C.

2. Is there a way of telling how much memory is left on the memory card?  I couldn't seem to find a way of telling this from the user manual.

Thanks.
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[Gordon Buck]

I use the cheap batteries from Sterlingtek.com in my G9.  They seem to work OK but I haven't tested them vs the Canon original.  Even assuming that the cheap batteries don't work as well or as long, you can buy a bunch of them and come out ahead.