Part One: Batteries are lame.
AA Batteries are a the WORST...AND it turns out they run pretty much everything we (ie. photo/video people) use from the Zoom H4n, to pocket wizards, to of course the biggie… our speedlights.
Ok you're right, it could be worse...we could have like 5 different kinds of batteries to use instead of just the standard AA’s. BUT the problem comes when you're shooting almost every day, but you're going broke trying to keep up with replacing these Double A demons….
Because if you think about it, even if you're shooting with only 2 flashes, both with battery packs, and say you get a whole week out of those batteries (not likely), thats 12 AA’s per flash x2...so 24AA’s a week, 96 a month, or over 1000 batteries a year!! In other words, you quickly could become a planet killing, douche ”B”! (A broke one too)
Now, say you forget to buy some extras, because you thought you had enough to last this job… but you end up shooting way more than you thought and you run out of batteries...
When someone is paying you to shoot something there is no way in hell you can risk having a dead battery stall, or even worse shut down your shoot. Can you imaging having to ask the client … “um hey man, um do you have any double A’s kicking around that I could borrow?” … NO, just NO.
So, you need yourself some rechargeables and a metric shit ton of em' too. So here's the ditty on rechargeable batteries that pertains to us:
The most common types of batteries today are NiMH and Lithium Ion. Lithium Ion is the same type of battery that is in your cameras, cell phone, tablet, laptop etc. The reason for this is: they're lightweight, hold a mean charge, have built-in temperature control stuff, and no longer have the need to completely run dry before you re-charge them.
The down side is that they are still relatively new (especially in the AA’s market) which makes them super expensive, and not easy to find. No doubt eventually we'll be rocking these little gems in all our gear but not yet my friends...
So, that takes us to NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride). These guys have two types: Low self discharge (LSD), and the regular joes (lets call them RJ’s). The difference is kinda in the name.. the RJ’s will drain themselves as they sit there being unused in your gear which sucks if you like to have your batteries charged and ready to go (which you should) incase you get a last minute job call. The LSD’s, on the other hand, will still drain but instead of a couple months they will take like a year to drain anything significant.
The only disadvantage of the LSD’s over the RJ’s is that the RJ’s will generally have a higher power output (that’s the mAh rating). But realistically, you have to be in a lab, bench testing this stuff to notice anything, and in my opinion, the advantage of the LSD’s outweigh any tiny amount of power difference from the RJ’s.
