So, I’m considering getting a charger and some batteries. They will be used for a digital camera that’s been owned for nearly a year and has gone through one set of batteries.
Here’s what I understand about batteries:
Lithium: don’t develop a “memory” or lose capacity with repeated chargings. Drawback is that they have a relatively short “life” compared to other batteries (i.e. they are good for X years and then they are useless). Most expensive.
Alkaline: I’ve heard rumors of magical chargers that will work with these, but understand that these are generally not rechargable. Cheapest option.
Nickle Cadmium: Your standard rechargables. More expensive than alkalines but less than lithium. Both develop a “memory” and lose power with each recharging (if my 6th grade science fair memory serves me correctly). If the commercials are to be believed, these drain faster than the other sorts of batteries.
I recall that there’s another common option, but can’t remember what it is.
What are your suggestions re: what to buy? There will possibly be another camera that will get fairly heavy usage added one day. If that’s the case, I presume that the litium would be the best choice, but would another option make more sense?
If your camera takes AA batteries you should probably only consider Nickel Metal Hydride. If you shop around you can find four packs for as little as $5 though up to ten is more common. I’ve been using Lenmar 2000mah cells along with there Gamma one hour cool charger and have been quite happy. Most of the fast chargers are good though the early Rayovac one hour chargers I started with were prone to severely overheating the batteries. I’ve had cells get so hot the plastic wrap would split.
I used the Rayovac aklaline recharable system and consider it wasted, particularly for digital cameras. Alkalines have a very gradual voltage fade as they discharge so an electronic device may indicate a dead battery prematurely. Lithium and NiMH maintain high voltage until just before total discharge. Even for devices well suited to aklakine batteries the cells had a much shorter life than a disposable cell and it got worse each time they were recharged.
A few packs of conventional alkalines for emergencies are good to keep in your camera bag.
AFAIK AA Lithiums are not rechargable. Li-ion rechargables are 3.6v so no compatibility with 1.2-1.5v cells in any practical way.
NiCads have been pushed out by NiMH since they typically have 1/2 to 1/3 the capacity and don’t have the desirable discharge curve of NiMH. The cadmium also makes these batteries toxic waste when you need to dispose of them unlike MiMH.
A couple things I should have added, particularly if you are looking at a new camera regarding what batteries it uses. NiMH has the drawback of not holding a charge on the shelf. After a week or two you may not even be able to turn on the camera even if you put freshly charged batteries in it. Li-ion doesn’t have this problem but more and more you only find that type in high end cameras like DSLRs which also typically consume much less power than consumer cameras. I have a Nikon D100 which uses Li-ion and I only charge batteries when one is completely dead. With a single charged spare I can usually get through a weekend and I don’t have to worry how recently I charged the spare. By contrast with my pocket camera, a Canonm A75, I need to make sure I have freshly charged batteries before a weekend but fortunately it has extremely good battery life even when operating with the display on all the time.
The other type of rechargable battery is NiMH (nickel metal hydride). These are preferable to NiCd rechargeables but aren’t as cool as Li-Ion batteries. They’ve pretty much become the defacto standard for rechargable replacements for ordinary alkaline batteries.
I have yet to find anyone selling Li-Ion rechargeables in “standard” sizes (AA, AAA, C, etc.) meant to replace alkalines. I did a fair amount of searching for such a thing at one point and turned up nothing. If anyone knows if they even exist, let me know.
Rechargeable battieries don’t always work well, or at all, in all electronic devices. Many times the “standard” batteries are ever so slightly larger in diameter than alkaline batteries, and if you have a tight fit in the battery compartment they can sometimes be a very tight fit, or even get stuck (I learned this the hard way). Also, NiCd and NiMH rechargeables only charge to 1.2 volts rather than the 1.5 volts alkalines put out (the difference is even greater for rechargeable “9-volt” batteries - they put out something like 7.2 volts). This can cause problems with some devices.
The voltage difference isn’t always what it seems. Nominal voltage is measured with a meter that has higher impedance than any real world load, that is it allows almost no current flow. This specifically ignores the internal resistance of the battery which is higher in alkalines than it is in NiCad or NiMH. This results in the seeminly odd situation of a high current device getting more voltage from a 1.2v NiMH battery than from a 1.5v alkaline.
A good example is my old Minolta Dimage 7. Very high battery consupmtion, a milliamp hour sucking pig! It would work fine with a set of 1.2v NiMH cells but a set of alkalines would fail after a matter of minutes and often would not even turn on even with brand new cells with full voltage.
Huh. I was actually considering getting a DiMage 7… I had heard about the phenomenal battery drain in about half the reports I read. I wonder if the 9 fixed that…
The newer models that superceded the Dimage 7 line, the A1 and A2 - there is no Dimage 9, use a Li-Ion battery which performs much better. To get siffcient working time I used a 3000mah 7.2 NiMH radio control car battery with an adapter in the external power jack.
Another recommendation for the Maha brand charger and NiMH 2300mAh batteries for your digicam. You won’t get any better results anywhere.
It’s nice to have a set of lithium (non-rechargable) AAs lying around. They’ll hold their charge for approx 10 years and you might need them in a pinch if you find yourself away from a charger.
I picked up some new batteries a few months ago. I went to Best Buy and found the highest rated capacity AA cells they had. These were 2300mAh Energizer NiMHs. The 4 pack was about $14. As I was leaving, I noticed they had 2400mAh cells but these only came with the charger and cost about twice as much. I already had a charger so I went with the (slightly) lower capacity cells. Anyway, point is that you should look for at least 2400mAh cells.
Re: Dimage: Hm. No 9. Ah well. How do you like the ones you’ve got? I’m ready to give up Sonys (have one that’s embarrassingly old, but still the best camera I’ve ever used. The infoLithium battery on that is going (four years old and it only holds the charge about half as long as it used to) F707 was unimpressive too (except for night vision which was kind of fun and the shooting little lasers around that really scared people) for Canons - much sharper images, truer color rendition, etc.
However, my film SLR was a Minolta, so I’m kind of nostalgic.
The Dimage 7 gave excellent images but I’m amazed I never hurled it against a wall. Terrible battery consumption, terrible autofocus and no ability to do manual focus well. I tried to use it with studio flash and a bizarre The redeeming qualities were an excellent wide range zoom lens and good ergonomics. The A2 is supposed to be a vastly better camera and has the anti shake and improved viewfinders amont other features while retaining all the good qualities of the D7.
I decided consumer cameras had too many drawbacks so went with a D100.
The Dimage 7 gave excellent images but I’m amazed I never hurled it against a wall. Terrible battery consumption, terrible autofocus and no ability to do manual focus well. I tried to use it with studio flash and a bizarre The redeeming qualities were an excellent wide range zoom lens and good ergonomics. The A2 is supposed to be a vastly better camera and has the anti shake and improved viewfinders amont other features while retaining all the good qualities of the D7.
I decided consumer cameras had too many drawbacks so went with a D100. The larger sensor is alone worth the cost IMHO.