I wonder if you could elaborate a bit more about the battery life of the S90. When you say it will last for 3 dives I am wondering how many photos you would typically be taking per dive and how long the camera would be 'active' during the dive.
For example with my Canon A640 (4 x AA cells) on a good dive my camera would probably be turned on for the whole dive. I could take between 100 and 200 photos. I also tend to shoot a lot of video - for example I have at times filled a 4 GB card in the space of 2 dives with a combination of stills and video.
Would the S90 cope with my sort of usage pattern? I need it to last at least 2 dives, preferrably three of high usage.
Thanks,
Dave
I had an A570 using Eneloops, the S90 runs longer with a fresh charge on both.
Yes, I turn my camera on at the start of the dive and it stays on until I am on the deco line or anchor buoy.
I have the Power Saver function off and the LCD set to two minutes, the LCD will go black after two minutes but will come back on with a button push or a twist of the camera. Since I am shooting at an interval mostly less than two minutes, the camera or the LCD never shut down.
Battery life will depend to a large degree on how much flash you use and there we have two choices, flash set to Manual and lowest power and flash set to Auto. I mostly shoot with my Inon strobes in External Auto mode with my S90 in Manual Flash and low power. This conserves battery power vs Auto Flash with the strobes in sTTL and boot strapping.
I take pictures constantly through the dive and I get two solid dives from the camera and like I said elsewhere, most of a third. I don't feel the battery life is all that bad, it is just average, the G11 has above average battery life but alas it cannot use all of the lenses the S90 can, so, it comes down to what is important to you.
The ability to use my Inon UFL165AD and the Fisheye UWL-04, both amazingly wide lenses, exceeded only by something like the Tokina 10-17 fisheye on a dSLR make the battery compromise worth it to me.
N