** Tim Green timothy.j.green@gmail.com [2007-08-14 07:43]:
On 8/14/07, Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
How long/far you will be going with the camera for battery choice (good NiMH rechargeable AA batteries with a good charger would be a good thing).
Good point about batteries - while fancy batteries can make the camera body smaller, it really sucks when you're out of juice and you can't just pop into the gift shop to buy some emergency zinc-carbon style AAs. My dad suffers from this so often it's not funny any more - he uses an otherwise very good Pentax Optio.
** end quote [Tim Green]
Whilst in principle I'd agree(*), in practice I've found that he 'fancy' custom batteries perform by orders of magnitude better. I very nearly didn't buy a digital camera after using my Dads Nikon 3200 because firstly it took ages between shutter press and taking the shot so missed many nice shots of my first son (who is now 6 so I guess that dates the technology a bit!), and secondly it ate batteries like nobodies business. Even with rechargable batteries and charger bought from a good photographic supplier (I can't remember which off hand) they would not keep their charge in the camera when not in use for more than a few days. When used they would manage around 10 shots before giving up. Even new batteries didn't improve things. I suspect everyone is now suspecting a dodgy camera, but the same was found with my Mums Pentax digital camera. When I finally got my Nikon 5200 I found that with my first run through of photos on the first battery charge I forgot exactly when it was first charged, and even now it manages enough shots that I don't really notice how many shots I've taken, or how many days it is since the last charge. That contrasts with my experience of laptop batteries where I was told by Dell that having managed 2/300 ish charges out of my C600 batteries over the period of a just over a year was extremely good going - but that's another issue altogether!
(*) One of the reasons I still have a fondness for my ancient Nikon F301 as it can use either AA or AAA batteries that are easy to get hold of, whereas my F601 and F70 both use different more difficult to get hold of batteries... and as a side note, haven't second hand film camera prices nose dived. If I sold all my boxed pristine Nikon film camera bits I still couldn't affored even the base D40 with a lens :( It's a shame the gadget that would fit a digital sensor into a standard 35mm camera never took off, ah well.