Digital Camera Batteries

There is a lot of talk on the net about digital camera batteries. If you've got a digital camera that uses AA batteries and you prefer to use nickel metal hydride rechargeable batteries, then I would strongly recommend PoweriZer brand "Professional for Digital Camera" batteries.

The performance of these batteries is nothing less than incredible. I've used these batteries in two different cameras for almost four years and their performance has remained phenomenal.

I bought a Minolta DiMage Z1 in the late summer of 2003, with an extended warranty. It came with a set of Alkaline batteries which it completely sucked dead in fifteen minutes. I quickly realized that feeding it Alkaline batteries was going to be an extraordinarily expensive proposition so I went and bought a set of Radio Shack NiMH rechargeable batteries. They only gave me 15-20 minutes per charge which was quite frustrating.

It became clear that I was going to have to buy multiple sets, but Radio Shacks were pricey so I went looking on the web for something more reasonable. I found a 24-pack of PoweriZer "Professional for Digital Camera" batteries, rated at 2250 MaH for $24 (with free shipping), so basically $1/battery which was about 1/5th Rat Shack's price.

These batteries provided about four hours of service in the Minolta DiMage Z1, or about 300 photos depending on how much active shooting / idle time. After about two years of usage, the Minolta broke and so I sent it in for warranty repair. Good Guys managed to lose the camera, or accidentally sell it, and after a year finally admitted to it and it was replaced with the Cannon PowerShot S2 IS, which overall is a superior camera except I think the Minolta lens was better (the Cannon PowerShot S2 IS tens to be subject to chromatic aberration and vignetting under certain circumstances).

With the Cannon, I get at least eight hours of camera time with these batteries. I can fill up a 1GB memory card, with 500 or 600 (sometimes more depending upon resolution) shots, download to the computer on battery power, clear the card, and still have battery power left over.

These batteries are four years old and still going strong. While I bought enough to have multiple sets in practice I never use them. One set stays in the camera because I can shoot all day on one set.

I have no affiliation with the companies that manufacture or distribute these batteries. I have just been very happy with the performance of these cells and they're inexpensive. They are made in China but they way outperform the Radio Shack cells and from what I've read most of what else is out there.

I've read many instance of people using 2600 MaH batteries and only getting 100-300 shots with the PowerShot S2 IS, while I'm getting 500-600 plus (and probably more if I had more than a 1GB memory card) with these batteries rated at 2250 MaH. I've read of people having to replace batteries only 2-3 years old, I use these heavily and they're still going strong towards the end of a fourth year. Absolutely no hint of decreasing capacity.

New Panasonic CMOS Image Sensor

A May 15th press release article, on Panasonic's website, describes a new image sensor technology that looks pretty promising.

Most of the time when I read a press release on a companies website, I take it with a bag of rock salt because a grain just won't do it. However, I believe this technology offers some genuine benefits.

Existing sensors use dyed polymer (plastic) filters to filter red, green, or blue light onto appropriate sensors and polymer (plastic) micro-lenses to focus light onto the photosensitive portion of the pixel. Such a thin layer of dye is readily bleached by UV light. Even with UV filters enough UV gets through to damage the dye filters over time causing digital cameras color rendition to degrade with time.

With existing CMOS sensors, the actual light sensitive region only occupies about 30% of the chip surface so to improve sensitivity they use micro lenses over the individual pixels to gather light from a larger area and focus it on the pixel. This is not without it's own problems because the micro lenses are less effective for light coming at them from an angle rather than straight on and thus pixels away fro the center of the image receive less light assuming the micro lenses are identical.

In addition to the limitations of this technology in terms of durability and image quality, the use of polymer on silicon is expensive. Everything has to be just so in order for the micro lenses to properly overlay the individual pixel sensors uniformly.

Panasonic has eliminated the need for polymer on silicon by incorporating sub-wavelength features on the chip die allowing for the construction of Fresnel like micro lenses and light filters directly out of silicon. Since the filters rely on physical structures, they are not susceptible to UV induced fading. Since the lenses are made using standard photo lithography techniques, they can be can be customized for their position on the sensor surface and compensate for the angle of incident light.

Since the new CMOS sensor should be cheaper to manufacturer it might just find it's way into some of the lower end cameras presently utilizing CCD image devices.

Everything I've read says that CCD's have higher sensitivity and lower noise than CMOS devices, but my own experience has been exactly the opposite. This might have to do with the fact that I like to do a lot of night photography and utilize long exposures so much of my utilization is atypical.

Happy Mother's Day

I made this for my mother from a photo I took yesterday.

Robin

Not An Eagle
Perched On The Neighbors Carport Roof

Eagle

I took this picture at Juanita Beach in Kirkland Washington. I've never seen an Eagle not in captivity before. They are a very majestic and impressive bird.