Re: [Leica] Batteries???

[Thomas Kachadurian <tom@kachadurian.com>]

It's mighty cold here in Northern Michigan. So I've run into this.

Here's my take:
1. Avoid the alkaline version at all costs.
2. The silver batteries give me the best overall results, but when it 
gets vicious cold, about -10F, the just flat die.
3. Lithiums (i think its a DL-3) work best in severe cold, but I find 
that they deplete rapidly at temps near 0F. When you're in the cold 
you need fresh lithiums.

My answer to all of this is to use an M4-P in the cold with my 
sekonic meter inside my coat with a Nicad AA. The Nicads are great in 
the cold.

Tom


>Dear Friends,
>
>A couple of questions about batteries for the M6.
>What's the best kind?
>How long should they last with the camera getting semi-daily use?
>
>The reason I'm asking is that when I go out shooting in the cold (it's -21
>celsius here today!) the light meter often doesn't light up, or else it's
>very, very dim. If I take the batteries out of the camera and warm them up
>in my hands or pockets for a while, they come back to life, and the light
>meter gets brighter.
>
>Is the diminishing power of the batteries the result of the cold, or the
>resistance to the cold of the type of battery I have, or is it a case that
>they get too cold too easily in the M6, or might the batteries just be weak?
>I haven't had the batteries that long in the camera (about two months), but
>then I don't really know what the life of batteries should be, nor do I know
>what the best batteries for the cold are. [I've gone through a few sets of
>batteries in the M6 over the past couple years; whereas with my old Nikon
>FM, I had a set of batteries that went through heavy use for 7 years and
>were still going strong before I replaced them -- I gave them a pre-emptive
>replacement, being fearful that they were eventually going to die -- then
>the next set of batteries I got for the same camera died only after a year.
>I might have thrown away a magical set of batteries.]
>
>Cheers, Dave
>------------------------------------------------
>DGF PHOTOGRAPHY
>http://home.golden.net/~tekapo

Thomas Kachadurian
====================
www.kachadurian.com