[mtansley]

Just finished a 9 days walk in scotland (west highland way), its a 96 miles (156km) walk. I dont know exactly how long the walking took in actuall time. But if we calculate around 2-2.5 miles per hour including breaks and photostops. (I would say around 2 miles per hour, maby a bit less). The first thing I did when I started walking was to turn the gps on, and the first thing (after a pint of ale) was to turn the gps of.
So a total of around 50h operating time and guess how many times I had to change batteries.

Once! On the last day, 3 hours walking untill we reached Fort William I had to switch batteries. Thats an amazing 47h worth of batteriytime from one single AAA battery.

I am Impressed.

And on a walk that has alot of ups and downs Its great to take a look in the camera and see, "look honey, we are at 560m altitude, we just climed a 200m slope". And when we walked up Ben Lomond I could check, Ye, thats right, we are at 974 meters altidtude.
The Inbuilt compas worked realy well. I could check exactly where we where on a map (not that I needed to, but I COULD).
And its Weaterproof. Making my K5 with DA*55 or the DA*50-135 a great match for some rainy walks. (It only rained for 4h total, but it would have been usefull!!)

I have also tried the astrotracer. It worked, the weater didnt. I constantly hade bad weather when I got it. And now the sun rises at 3 in the morning and sets at 10. And it dont get dark again until late august.

Over and out from Umeå, sweden

Interesting that you found the compass useful. In my review I wondered what use it was, however, it was evidently very useful for you.

The weather resistance feature is nice and the battery life is very impressive, especially the life you got. What sort of battery did you use? Alkaline, lithium or rechargeable?

Oh well, what is a useless feature for someone, is a very useful feature for someone else. Pentax got it right with this device if only it were cheaper!!

[melander]

Interesting that you found the compass useful. In my review I wondered what use it was, however, it was evidently very useful for you.

The weather resistance feature is nice and the battery life is very impressive, especially the life you got. What sort of battery did you use? Alkaline, lithium or rechargeable?

Oh well, what is a useless feature for someone, is a very useful feature for someone else. Pentax got it right with this device if only it were cheaper!!

I used lithium batteries, disposable ones.

What i found to be most usefull about the inbuilt compass was that I always had it around my neck. It was easy to check a direction and then looking at the map and see what mountain you are looking at. No need to pick up the magnetic one from the bag or the pocket.

One thing bothered me, low clouds with alot of fog rendered the gps useless. I know that some weaker handheld ones also suffer from this problem. So you should never rely on gps only. A real compass and knowhow is always the best

[Zorglub]

Pentax got it right with this device if only it were cheaper!!

In my experience the astrotracking ability is worth the cost alone, especially compared to a full blown setup with guide camera which costs way more. If GPS is the only thing you want out of the device it is definitely overpriced. Thanks for the review by the way :-)

[mtansley]

In my experience the astrotracking ability is worth the cost alone, especially compared to a full blown setup with guide camera which costs way more. If GPS is the only thing you want out of the device it is definitely overpriced. Thanks for the review by the way :-)

Thanks. Writing a review can be difficult because you want to try to be objective but personal bias can creep in as well.

Hence my comments about me not being a skilled astrophotographer and that certain features are of no use to me but may be just what someone else is looking for.

[mtansley]

I used lithium batteries, disposable ones.

What i found to be most usefull about the inbuilt compass was that I always had it around my neck. It was easy to check a direction and then looking at the map and see what mountain you are looking at. No need to pick up the magnetic one from the bag or the pocket.

One thing bothered me, low clouds with alot of fog rendered the gps useless. I know that some weaker handheld ones also suffer from this problem. So you should never rely on gps only. A real compass and knowhow is always the best

Interesting that you found the compass useful. Just goes to show that what is one person's useless feature is another person's really useful feature.

I so agree with you on not relying on gps alone. I use my car satnav quite a bit but always am willing to question what it is telling me and always keep paper maps with me.