This Week's New Battery

As opposed to the new one we introduced last week or the even newer one we are going to show next month. You'll be wanting to exchange your camera system to take advantage...

No names, no lack drill, but I do remember the days in Stirling street when a shipment of batteries arrived for a certain manufacturer and we got to restock the shelves. You could count the number of batteries needed for the rack on the fingers of both hands and if you ran out you'd have to get another staff member to hold theirs up.

It was as if every new camera had to have a new battery, charger, and packaging. You kept your wits about you reading the codes on the packages and when a customer asked which battery fitted their camera you had a sly look at the spread sheet under the counter.

I retreated to a system that compelled fewer choices. For years one basic type of lithium-ion block drove the compact and mirror-less models. One could buy up enough to have a spare with every body and brigade them up when there was to be a big shoot. If they were not the biggest batteries on the block, at least you could always have a freshie and change at interval.

Now even they have succumbed and introduced a newer, bigger battery into the latest generations of mirror-less. More battery, more power, more shots. More gooder, one would say...except the change in power means the newer cameras are less attractive to someone with an entire set of old batteries. I am consciously
keeping to the older bodies to utilise the investment already made.

Indeed, I am also finding that the third-party batteries available at CE are in many ways better performers than the proprietary ones. I'll be replacing one of the very old ones as it has started to swell ( we all do in time...) with the third- party type and not regretting it. I've proved to myself that they work.