At 11:48 PM 3/21/00 +0100, Rikard Björklind wrote:
[snip]
>Everyone says that silver oxide batteries is better than alkalines. But
>how much better are they? I've been using the same pair of alkalines for
>two years now (with my OM-2), and I recently put them in the OM-2sp, and
>they are working fine there.
>Is it worth it too search for silveroxide? At least here in sweden the
>alkalines are easier to find :-).
Rikard:
As some other List members have noted, alkalines have an annoying tendency to
fail during exposure, even though the battery indicator says "good." This
tendency, as far as I can tell, is increased during cool/cold weather.
The reason for this has to do with the different internal resistances (and
therefore different internal peak current flows) of alkalines vs. silver
oxides, combined with the differing discharge curves of the two types of
batteries.
Silver oxides combine two very desirable characteristics in a battery which
powers a magnet (which is essentially what's happening when the OM-2sp keeps
its shutter curtain open for a specified period of time): a relatively flat
discharge curve over a wide range of operating temperatures, and a relatively
low internal resistance, which allows it to provide high current pulses of
energy for short periods of time. Thus, a silver oxide, for most of its
operating life, maintains a voltage quite close to 1.55v (very important as a
reference voltage for the exposure circuit), and can deliver the milliamps when
they're most needed, that is, when the shutter curtain is open and sucking
amperage. Alkalines, by contrast, share *neither* of these desirable
characteristics to the same extent as silver oxide in an identical form factor
(button cells). That's why silver oxides are "better" for the application
you're interested in (keeping the OM-2sp happy).
So yes, if you don't want to risk having your OM-2sp "crap out" just when
you're going for that once-in-a-lifetime shot, silvers offer better insurance
in this regard. (Nothing's perfect, though.)
Garth
"A bad day doing photography is better
than a good day doing just about
anything else."
The Unofficial Olympus Web Photo Gallery at:
http://www.taiga.ca/~gallery/
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