On Sun, 19 Mar 2006 09:35:26 GMT, Gunner
wrote:

I didnt get any batteries with it..he uses nicads and kept them, So I
loaded it up with fresh Alkalines..and got about 10 daylight pictures
out of them....damn thats a battery hungry *******!!!

Are you sure that the alkaline batteries are truly dead? Alkalines
don't keep up with the high current draw of some cameras, and
experience voltage droop -- let them sit and they often recover to
some extent (maybe even to what appears as "full charge").

Which for me..is better..NIMH or NiCads? It may be weeks or longer
before I need to take any pictures and am worried about the self
discharge of the NiMH batts

I think the self discharge between them is fairly similar, longer
term. The NiCds will take more abuse before they're destroyed
(unregulated charging, overcharging, etc), but the NiMH will have
better capacity.

NiMH also require a special charger (not the cheapie NiCd chargers).

This is a good link:
http://ibet.asttbc.org/batterys.htm

And some other NiCd/NiMH links I've collected over the years:
http://www.zbattery.com/zbattery/memoryeffect.html
http://www.buchmann.ca/chap10-page1.asp
http://www.houseofbatteries.com/HowTo/NiCd.htm
http://www.houseofbatteries.com/HowTo/Secondary.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/hayles/charge1.html
http://www.repairfaq.org/ELE/F_NiCd_Battery.html
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/print-partone-4.htm

And for Lead acid applications (since I noticed this link while
looking thru my rechargeable battery tech pages for you Gunner)
http://www.uuhome.de/william.darden/

I would recommend you save these pages to your HDD, as several of my
old favorite sites have dropped their pages...

On the gripping hand...NiMH appear to have over twice the amp hour
rating..1800 is average for AAs, going up to 2500 mah

And, if you get a decent charger, you can leave the NiMH in the
charger until you need them. If you're worried about self-discharge,
then load the camera with Alkalines for "ready action", if you really
need that, and leave the NiMHs in the charger. I leave the NiMHs in
my camera, and periodically (every 2-3 weeks) swap them out, and run
them through the charger. I've not had any problems so far.

BTW, a warning about wall-warts... Most of them are not regulated, so
if you're worried about providing the correct voltage to your camera,
snip into the +V line, and install a regulator (also, if you're
planning on doing this, then you should get a wall-wart with a voltage
rating a couple volts over your required regulated voltage -- most of
the regulators require about 2 Volts overhead)... Let me know if you
need more info on this.

Retief