On Dec 27, 2005, at 6:45 AM, Charles Robinson wrote:
So now I'm back to seeing how well my Energizer 2500mAh batteries do, with the Duracell 1-hour charger. I never really had measured how well they held up.
I have been using a set of Power2000 2400mah NiMH AAs since I bought the DS as my standard power source. They come with their own fast charger (1.5 hours from exhausted to full for a set of four). I haven't checked recently, but on average they seem to power the DS for 500-700 exposures per charge, maybe a little less. I charge them every weekend.
The quality of the charger you use is critical to the performance you get out of these batteries. The Maha chargers sold by Thomas Distributing http://www.thomas-distributing.com/ are reputed to be very high quality. Couple of the folks on this and the DPReview list have also recommended another charger unit, can't recall the name off- hand. The Power2000 charger is not in the same class, but it seems to be a fairly good unit too. The Duracell charger didn't seem to be terribly sophisticated when I looked at one at the local electronics store the other day.
(For travel, I've used Energizer AA Lithium E2 disposables and CRV3 Lithium disposables. Average life seems to be about 1200 exposures per set with either. At about [EMAIL PROTECTED] for the AAs, when purchased in packs of 8 or 12, the lack of maintenance required seems to be worth the price.)
I read stories about people getting 400-500 shots off of a charge and I wonder if they ever use the preview screen. Could the fact that I double-check most every shot really be killing the battery time that much? I also do a lot of "vertical" shots and I go in and rotate them before I download to the computer, but still....
I have review set on for 3 seconds as a matter of course, and I do the "review and rotate" thing a good bit of the time too. I think you simply have either a bad cell or the charger isn't really up to the task as well as it ought to be.
Godfrey
