battery life

[tom beard]

I have a ten year old olympus with a 1-1/2 lcd screen, auto focus, zoom and flash. If I try to compose using the lcd, I can burn through the four 1-1/2 v AA batterys in a big hurry. I'm probably going to replace it with a Nikon D-90 with it's huge 3"+ lcd screen, not to mention the power that vibration damping, silent wave motors, in camera editing, built in flash etc. will chew up. I know battery technology has come a long way, but with all that power draw, should I buy a whole bunch of extra battery packs ? I used to be a professional (film) photographer documenting marine biologists at sea and in the lab. Now that I'm retired, I would like to learn general photography, and the scope that digital offers, so I'll probably be tough on batterys learning. We used to have an experssion; "Shoot everything three times, film's cheap." That doesn't seem to be true any more. Any replys will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Tom Beard

 

[tsaraleksi]

DSLRs have much longer battery life than point and shoot cameras (though I have no idea what kind of Olympus you have) and modern battery tech means far longer lives. I don't have specific numbers on the D90 but my modern SLR gets 900-1000 shots to a charge.

 

[AlexColeman]

My D90 got excellent life, about 850 rounds even using the 70-200, VR.

If you go with a battery grip, you will be stellar, the most you will need is 3 batteries.

 

[chadsdphoto]

The batteries should last much longer than what you are used to in a 10 year old camera. You're right that there's even more stuff using the battery power, but it's much more efficient than they used to be.

I like the expression about film being cheap. Temporary use of megapixels is even cheaper! I always advise people to shoot and shoot more. Deleting the pictures afterwards is easy and better than not getting the shot because you only took one.