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Digital camera batteries
By Jakob Jelling
Snapjunky.com
Every device needs a driving force to operate, just as every
living thing needs a heart to keep it alive! Basically electric
power does this job for any kind of devices nowadays. Similarly
for any digital camera too, a good battery is necessary in order
to ensure an excellent performance from it as long as possible.
Being such a crucial task as if searching for a good heart for a
human being, perhaps the most tedious thing about digital
cameras is the quest for their battery consumption and thereby
finding a suitable one for any particular one. Yet a basic
overview regarding this so important component of a digital
camera makes the ventures of the users somewhat less complicated
and makes life easier with a proper selection of the battery!
Leaving aside the ever power thirsty LCD screens and flashes,
the digital cameras themselves exhaust batteries much faster
than film cameras, due to their state of the art electronic
designs and intricate circuitry. Many digital cameras run from
AA cells, around 4, and can even drain a set of alkaline cells
in less than 1 hour of working! For example, the Kodak DC120
draws about 210mA during start or switch ON, but progresses to
around 1.3A with the association of the LCD fully working and
can go ahead to about 2.1A while picture taking and after it
too.
With all these nightmares regarding the batteries of the
digital cameras, it is worthwhile to analyze and reveal some of
the available batteries for the digital cameras in an effort to
explore area of power consumption in this fantastic device.
Coming to first one of these, like its great name suggests, it
is the Li-ion (Lithium Ion). It is one of the latest cell types
available to digital camera users. This has many advantages to
its credit. It is light in weight and currently available for
many commercial uses and thus being so the Li-ion (Lithium Ion)
battery type is becoming quite popular. This has an added
advantage of being able to endow with more power than any of the
other main cell types available. It is also free from the
problems of memory effect, hat some battery types do have, and
maintenance is least in this type of battery. These are but real
goodies about this Li-ion (Lithium Ion) battery. Yet it has one
major disadvantage, that is, the price is usually significantly
higher than conventional batteries, due to its sophisticated
design and technology.
Coming to the next one in the line, the NiMH (Nickel Metal
Hydride). This is a battery that is perhaps the most frequently
under use for not only digital cameras, but also for other
sophisticated devices like laptop computers! This has the
advantage of being cheap in price due to the fact that it incurs
cheap manufacturing costs, and thus a choice for many users! But
this does have the problems of memory effect, and much more
maintenance and care is required while handling this kind of
battery.
Another such battery is the NiCAD (Nickel Cadmium) Battery. This
is perhaps belonging to one of the older cell types generally
available for older laptops and electronic devices. These
batteries or cells have an aptitude for handling high power
loads, and therefore is more frequently found in handy power
tools and devices that require more amounts power to work
efficiently and perfectly. Yet again, these batteries too have
the problems of memory effect, and much more maintenance and
care is required while handling this kind of battery.
Apart from the different batteries themselves, the selection
should be based upon the charging techniques and the different
charges available for all these digital camera batteries. Latest
batteries come handy with charging free techniques too! So care
needs to be taken in this area also, depending upon the
requirements of the user.
With all the vivid conversation regarding the hearts of the
digital cameras, their batteries, it is expected for every
person going through the lines to have grabbed a significant
amount of information in dealing with the intricacies of the
purchase, and thereby also augment the ability of the person in
using such a sophisticated device as a digital camera with a
proper battery!
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