New Digital Rebel, first digital camera :)

So, I've officially lost my mind.

I was browsing ebay and put a spur of the moment bid on a digital rebel being sold from a british seller. It's a body kit only, but brand new, and with shipping I paid about $500. I bought a lense seperate from another seller, since being a Minolta girl all my lenses are for maxxums.

God bless credit cards.

Anyway, so, it arrived today... looks beautiful and I'm drooling over it as I type. :) The kit came with the battery pack and charger, ect. But I'm curious about a few things---

How long will the battery pack be good for once charged? My mom and I go camping on our trips a lot, so we won't always have access to outlets to plug in the charger. Should I invest in a second battery pack?

Memory cards-- will any compactflash card work? My ma and I are going to Rocky Mountain NP in July for a week, how much memory should I have for a weeks worth of hiking and shooting?

My lense should get here Tuesday, and then hopefully I'll be able to start figuring out how to use this thing... :0)

Thanks all for your help. I've never gone digital before... I still can't believe I actually went through with it and bought this camera :)

Welcome to the dark side! ;)

I can't answer specifically about Canon but would always recommend at least one extra battery pack - especially since you aren't sure of how long it will last. If you don't have the ability to charge batteries every night or two, you might want a couple spares.

Compact Flash cards come as Type I and Type II. I think it's the Type I that are the microdrives which are a little thicker. I'd advise against those (my own opinion) because they seem to be fragile. Solid State cards are pretty bullet proof, heard of them going thru the washing machine and coming out OK. I use 512MB cards because you can burn a CD before doing anything else (1GB is too big for a CD). I don't often do that, but it's an option. How many cards and of what size you use is a personal choice based on how you shoot. RAW files will take a lot more memory than high-quality JPEG's. For example, on my Fuji S2, I get 38 RAW or 208 JPEG on a 512 - your numbers should be fairly close to that.

Have a great time at RMSP, it's a beautiful place. I'm going to be near there next month but unfortunately don't have time to fit it in. Five years ago we saw many Elk even in the middle of the day. That was about this time of year, and the road that connects the two sides of the park was still closed because it's over the mountains and still covered with snow and ice. July should be great.

Welcome to the wonderfull world of digital. :) I have a DRebel, and I would suggest getting an extra batter, or two. I carry 3 with me at all times. Two in the battery grip, and I can shoot all day, with an extra one in my pack. I wouldn't risk going on a nice trip like you are planning without at leas one backup. Get 2 extras if you can afford it. I shoot fine jpegs and can get about 150 shots on a 512 card, 300 or so on a 1 GB card. I haven't tried shooting much in RAW yet, the camera says I can shoot 69 RAW files on my 512 card, 139 on the 1GB card. So use your judgement as far as what you think you will need, based on your shooting style, then double it :). Better to have too much memory, than to run out on the trip of a lifetime. If you have a laptop, take it with you so you can download your images when you get a card full.

One other thing to consider is, the larger the card, the more you have to loose. A 1GB card with 300 photos on it, is a lot to loose if something should happen to the card...