Camera Batteries

I have long held the view that camera manufacturers are in league with battery makers to ensure the latter’s products do not last long and always run out at the worst possible moment! Most cameras today seem to eat batteries like they are going out of

Fashion. Maybe it’s just my shooting style, but then again we're at the mercy of this nowadays everything’s power driven-- metering, focus, shutter, wind on and rewind.

Taking travel pictures means I am often in a place just once. I get a single opportunity to capture some good saleable images. So I shoot a lot of film, this being the cheapest part of any long overseas trip by my reckoning. But it also means the need for more batteries, of course.

I have used two trusty Nikon FA bodies for over a decade now, as my main cameras. They each use two tiny LR44 batteries to power the meter only, and I can still use the camera with no batteries at all at 1/250 second. Fantastic, a great reason to keep using them until they go to the great camera graveyard in the sky. Nikon has yet to improve on this 1985 design.

But I also like to use a modern camera for other advantages, such as motor drive, and also as plain insurance by backing up with another body. When I bought my Nikon F100, one of the key reasons was the incredibly sensible fact that it runs on four normal AA batteries, surely the most common type around. No matter where I am in the world I can always get another set. Great and full marks to Nikon. What a great pity then that they have not continued this practical policy with subsequent models. Total design failure, to my mind. Did the battery manufacturers complain, maybe, that they weren’t they selling enough of the specialised difficult-to-find expensive types?

For the F100, I started off buying expensive lithium AA batteries. They made the camera a bit lighter, and certainly lasted longer. But they also died without warning, a disaster I did not need. So I gave up buying these and returned to more conventional AA

Batteries, such as Duracell.

The great battery revelation came in Japan, where I found a chain of shops in most cites called the ‘Y100 Shop.’ Everything inside is just Y100 (US $0.80), so I looked for AA batteries, found a packet of six and bought two packs, which gave me three F100 sets at about Y67 (US$0.53) a set, remarkable.

Convinced they would not last more than a film or two, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that many rolls went through. Not as many as conventionally- priced brands, but hey, I should worry, they were just Y67 (US$0.53) a set!

I always carry spare batteries when shooting, and fortunately have another set in my flashgun, but I would advise any photographer to keep an eye out for bargain basement batteries, wherever they are traveling.

As a travel photographer, I often think it is better not to skimp on some things. Such a policy can sometimes be a false economy and let you down at the vital moment where you never get another chance. But when it comes to batteries, if you can find cheapies like these, then it is a sensible saving.