Re: thoughts on new Canon compacts?


Paul Rubin wrote:

"Mike Henley" <casioculture@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
I empathise because I had the same requirement. I must say now, though,
it's not worth it. The reasons are:
- It's easier to carry and handle two or three spare
designed-for-camera batteries than to carry, say, 8 or 12 AA batteries.

Thanks for the kind thoughts, but I'm not a newbie and I'm not really
interested in advice like that. I've had AA cameras and I've had
lithium cameras, and I know the good and bad points of both well
enough to make up my own mind without further advice on the topic, and
I want an AA camera. But just to answer you:

1. The comparable lithium camera to the A610 would be something like
the SD550. It uses a lithium battery which is about 3.6v 800 mAH or
something like that, which is the same amount of energy as *one* AA
cell (2500 mAH 1.2v NiMH), not four. So you should compare carrying
two or three spare designed-for-camera batteries to carrying two or
three spare AA's, not 8 or 12.

I'll be blunt; that's not how it works. What matters is how many shots
you can take on a full charge. With something like the fuji f10 you can
take up to 500 per charged battery. How many shots can you take with a
camera that takes AA batteries and uses 4 of them for a single charge?
It won't be multiples of that; it won't be in the thousands; in my
experience if a camera that uses 4 AA batteries can take over 350 shots
then it's said to have an excellent battery life.



2. In fact you're already carrying an AA charger because of your other
devices that use AA's, but for a lithium camera, you need a separate
charger. So you have to compare carrying two or three more AA's
($2.50 each and interoperable with your other gear) with carrying two
or three much more expensive proprietary batteries ($10 or so each if
you are willing to deal with buying them on ebay, $20+ otherwise) that
are incompatible with everything else, AND carrying another yet charger.

Conclusion: I want to stick with AA. Not lithium. Thanks.

I don't think you've been nice enough in your reply considering the
time I took and considering that your replies above don't suggest
you're talking out of experience. You have to compare carrying 2 or 3
proprietary batteries with carrying the amount of AA batteries that
would give you the equivalent 2 or 3 charges, which would be 8 or 12 as
is usually the case in cameras with good battery life, and most
important of all that would give you the equivalent amount of shots.
Here's how it works in real experience, you can fantacise all you want
about how many shots you can take with your umpteen AA batteries and
your 15-minute charger, but the reality is that I doubt you'll be
shooting more than 500 per day, day after day, or wanting to sift
through that many on your comptuer screen that often, unless you're a
sports photographer using an unattended camera setup or some other
niche, in which case you probably won't be wanting this camera. If you
don't have a niche requirement and you have to shoot that many to get
your shots, then there is something seriously wrong with your skills
and you need to revise your basics. And if you do shoot that many then
your concern will be about more critical costs such personal time,
storage - memory cards, etc - rather than the batteries, which are an
insignifcant cost in comparison. I know what I'm talking about far too
well; I have a drawer upstairs littered with tens and tens of AA
batteries and chargers, even those 15min chargers.

Rest assured, I have no intention of forcing you to use proprietary
batteries; I did link you to AA-using cameras as well. I do suggest you
be nicer to people who take their time to reply to you; I feel mine had
been somewhat wasted. There's no shame in being informed by others;
many in this newsgroup and elsewhere had informed me.

.

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