If you plan on going out shooting for a day tomorrow, put the batteries in the charger tonight, whether you think they need it or not. Even if you shorten their life from two years' useful life to eighteen months, what's the big deal? You'll replace them for $10 when they wear out, and still have enough left over to dine out that night. ;) And the reality is, charging prior to full discharge isn't going to be that big of an issue, especially with better/newer NiMH's.
I do have a quick question for the Lithium AA people. The manual for my *ist-DS states that Lithium AA's aren't recommended for the *ist-DS. Is that a warning I should take seriously? What's the issue?
Dave
Mark Cassino wrote:
A question about how to best manage NiMH Batteries.
Let say you have not shot your *ist-D or flashes for 6 weeks. You have several sets of NiMH batteries. You know that the now stale batteries will poop out quickly in your *ist-D, but will probably hold their own in a flash unit.
You decide to go out shooting, but for all you know, you’ll wind up with no shots using either the DSLR or the flash…
Do you ---
1 Recharge everything; after all, the batteries are stale…
2 Drain everything and then recharge to eliminate any possible memory – assuming (of course) that your charger does not already drain and charge.
3 Recharge a couple set of batteries for the camera, let the other drain out in the flash and recharge the later.
4 Stop worrying and just shoot, replace the batteries as needed, and if you come up short at the end of the day, switch to film…
Just wondering, as these last several Michigan weeks have afforded me few digital photo ops. I’ve managed to get some interesting shots of the Michigan wilderness in early spring, but those are more grim than cheery and better suited for B&W film than digital.
So – should I fire up the charger? Start draining batteries, or just stop worrying?
- MCC
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mark Cassino Photography Kalamazoo, MI www.markcassino.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
