Camera Batteries

One of my favorite cameras... an Olympus with a rare Kodak
sensor... was rendered useless by a faulty battery charger.

While the radio batteries are charging (the walkie-talkies and base radio mentioned in my previous post) I figured I should also get on with double checking all my camera batteries and chargers.  

Last year, I meticulously checked all my camera batteries before we left for the lake.  My main concern was having enough batteries on hand for both still photography and videography. Even after being meticulous with all of these batteries, I still ran into problems the second day we were at the lake!

In all, I think there are about two dozen batteries I must keep conditioned and charged for my cameras and accessories (ie, my flashguns use four batteries each). Before we head out for any weekend getaway or time out-of-town, I always ensure I have enough batteries charged to get me through at least one full day of shooting, preferably two full days. Conditioning and charging this many batteries, however, can take a few days of time. 

The new battery and charger to replace my faulty
charger and short-circuited batteries.

Even after all my meticulous work last year before we left for the lake house, I still had a major battery failure in multiple batteries for one of my cameras. The odd thing was that I didn't have just one bad battery which, after all, we should expect to happen every now and then. No... I had multiple batteries go bad... at the same time. After all that work to ensure I arrived at the lake house having all the battery power I needed for my photography, to say I was frustrated and annoyed by this development is a bit of an understatement. 

After about a half hour of troubleshooting, I realized that one of my battery chargers must have failed and was now shorting out my batteries.  Humph.  I spent all that time and effort focused on the batteries and I completely forgot about the possibility of charger failure. Not only was I now short a necessary charger because it failed but it ruined two batteries when I tried to charge them on this faulty charger.  I really was very annoyed with myself and at my gear.

Hopefully there will be no such problems this year...