Of course, that's why I made it all up...it was a joke, no facts, no
backup, nothing at all. In fact, the CHA error doesn't exist and Nikon
put it in their user manuals to fool you.

Yeah...yeah...that's the ticket!

I'd guess they were all 2gig or smaller cards where the default file
system is FAT. This issue doesn't usually happen on those cards,
unless the file allocation table is corrupt from some event like a
sudden power loss (battery or AC power loss).

The +2gig cards need to use FAT32, and for some reason the format on
the computer doesn't always agree with the camera interface. It's
probably a buffer capacity issue where older cameras have support for
FAT32 but only to a certain point. I'd guess a relatively large
20-32gig card wouldn't work beyond a fixed gigabyte limit, perhaps
about 8gigs(?), but I don't have specific data on that.

If it's nonsense, why do you agree that formating in-camera is better?

The thing is that I formatted the card on the PC as a last resort.
Really, I had run out of options, and tried that as a method of maybe
making the thing work.  After formatting on the PC, and it not working,
I then went and formatted in the camera.  It still didn't work.

The camera store took everything back and gave me all new stuff.  I have
no idea what was wrong, it's just so weird.  My guess at this time is
that the card was messed up and it somehow affected the cameras.  In
some way.  I don't know.

In the meantime, I have now run through the install process on the
camera.  Wow, is this great.  I had an N90s before, and this is really
fantastic.

I really like the banks of settings.  Is there a web page someplace that
duplicates various types of film without me having to experiment?  For
example, if I wanted to create a Velvia group of settings, has someone
figured that out someplace, and I can just enter them in and keep them
for when I want to create photos with those settings?

My only problem is that I know in a couple of years that this camera is
going to be obsolete, meanwhile, my n90s is perfectly functional and
totally usable.  Kind of a bummer, but I think that it pretty much does
everything I could want it to do already.  The only thing left would be
maybe a full 35mm sensor, but I kind of like the idea of all my longer
lenses being 1.5x longer now.  I bought the 12-24 lens to replace the
17-35 I use pretty much always for now.  I'd get the 18-300 lens too,
but I just don't need it, as I have similar lenses already.

Another thing, I guess, that would be good is lower noise at higher ISO.
 But truth be told, it really doesn't appear at this time worse than
film grain at these ISO values.  I figure eventually we'll have 32000
ISO and no noise at all.  But film certainly does not allow for that,
and what I have seen so far is that it mimics film pretty darned close
if not way better already.

So, I guess I'm jazzed.

I also got the SB800, and haven't really looked at it too much, due to
all the other nonsense I've been dealing with.  But it looks like you
can do off camera stuff as if it has a built in SU-4 unit in it.  How
cool.  My old flash, an SB28, really worked great.  If this flash does
better, I certainly can't complain.  If I can use it with an SU-4, and
the SB800, and the on camera flash together, then I think this is going
to be quite nice.

Thanks!

Formatting in my camera, a 20D, takes about a second. Erasing all on a
largish card can take over 15 seconds, longer on the 300D.

Nor should you. There is generally no requirement to format a card
since they all use the same FAT16/FAT32 file systems. It's just
quicker to format than to have the file browser delete the files on
the card.

Actually I don't format very often...I usually just move the images
from the card to my computer. That deletes them off the card while
moving them, and the card's good to go again.