How long are your Ni-MH batteries lasting?

[Marvo]

OK, maybe this should really be in the batteries forum but,
Let's have some feedback on how long your sets of AA Ni-Mh batteries are lasting on 1 charge.
I'm no longer using the camera with Lithiums fitted as the first set only lasted a week - maybe 300 shots with a dozen or so test pics using the flash. - I'm not going to buy 52 sets of CR123s a year! Or was I just unlucky? I don't use the flash on the camera so, I'm now letting the AAs do all the work.
I started using a 1 and 2 year old set of Hahnel 1600mAh from the old camera and was pretty dissapointed, getting about 40 shots as fine JPGs (saved to Compact flash card) and dowloaded to the notebook.
I got a new set of Ansmann 1800mAh at the weekend, I've shot and downloaded over 120 images and they're still going! Just shows what a new set of batteries can do. It looks like these Ni-MH batteries do have a life expectancy or is it that Hahnel batteries are just rubbish?

How are you getting on?

Marvo.:)

[SSonnentag]

I don't take a huge number of pictures, but I'm still on my original lithium batteries that came with my camera. I use PowerEx 1800 mAh AA's. The AA's last at least 400 pictures (I changed them out just to be safe before taking my last trip). I now have 350 pictures on my second charge of the AA's and my lithiums are still working fine. I've probably taken 25 pictures using the built-in flash. I use an external flash most of the time when a flash is needed.

Shawn

One more thing... I'm using Compact Flash 512MB for all of my pictures. An IBM Microdrive uses about 3-6 times the power (depending on the drive size), so your battery life will be shorter if you use one. The new 1GB drives use the least power of all of the Microdrives. Compact Flash uses only slightly more power than SmartMedia, but it writes faster, so power usage between SM and CF should be fairly equal.

[teski]

After almost 950 pictures, I am still on the original cr123's that came with the camera. The AA's that came with it died after about 400-450 shots. I have used the internal flash a fair amt. but I mostly use my SB-50DX. I temporarily used some Radio Shack 1500 NiMh batteries for a couple hundred shots, and I am now using Maha Powerex 1800 NiMh batteries, and haven't had to change them yet.

I shoot all JPEG (mostly 6MP), and I use a Ridata 512 MB card.

Teski

[Tom V]

I put a new, freshly charged set of Sunpack 1800mAh AA in my camera on Sept. 28 and went to a Formula One race. I shot about 140 overexposed images of F1 practice on a 512mb 24x Lexar CompactFlash card (my fault, forgot the +/- setting I used the night before). I erased all those images. I then went out and shot the race, filling up the 512 card, and then filling a 1gb IBM MicroDrive, with another 400 images or so. I then have goofed around with the remote shooting software, testing out new lenses at the store, shot about 30 product shots to put on eBay, used my 105mm Micro with it's constant focusing (for shooting the little battery tray parts in the tray (posted today)), for another for A GRAND TOTAL OF 473 SHOTS SO FAR since loading the AA batteries.</B>

I put in the CR123s on Sept. 26, which have lasted for all of the above.

Naturally, the fool battery indicators indicate fool batteries, so I that means I have at least enough power for the LAST shot I took.

I bought my AA batts at Ritz Camera, 4 batts for $10.00, a set with a household 6-hour charger = $20, and a set with a 2-hour household/auto charger for $25.00.

I buy my CR123 batts from http://www.botachtactical.com/toscr123a3vo.html for $1.25 each (20 for $25):p

[memobug]

When the CR123s go, they go quick!

Some beeps and the battery icon flashes on the top LCD. It may let you shoot another 3 frames, then.... BLAT!

Regards,

Matt