Re-Volting Development - The Powered Menace

I don't wish to alarm you, but many of the cameras in use today contain electricity. Not a great deal, in some cases, but enough to cause concern in certain quarters.

The American Collection Of Concerned Physicians has called for the banning of all electricity - not only in photographic equipment, but in all aspects of life. They cite the troubles in Fukushima and point out that if the Japanese had been content to light their houses with rush lanterns they wouldn't be in the mess they are today. Of course, it is a little mean to scold people who have been caught up in a natural disaster, but the Collection has only their best interests at heart. And physicians scold good.

For the photographic-minded, the electronic camera is the norm today - very few of the mobile phones that people use to snap pictures have enough space for a roll of film. The amount of electricity needed varies as the size of the camera and the features increase. The compact battery is a small wafer that will shoot 200 shots - the big industrial macho camera needs a giant lithium-ion cell that shoots 2000 shots. You are encouraged to recharge these instead of throwing them away.

There are throw away lithiums, however. The Promaster people make a series of cylindrical ones that power older film cameras, light meters, and some accessories. they are the CR1/3N, the CR2, the CR123A, and any number of little flat button cells. These are good value in that they are lightweight for the electrical capacity. But there is a fatal flaw...

Many of the manufacturers of equipment that takes the flat button cells have decided upon slightly different sizes of battery - they all pretty much pump out the same voltage, but inevitably you never have the correct number for the customer's needs. As this is the International Week of Standards - like ISO and DIN and ASA and suchlike - I would like to call upon all right-thinking photographers to grab torches and pitchforks and march up the street to the camera designers and demand that they get their blinking act together.

Me? I'm currently converting my D300s to operate off a Leyden jar. As soon as I can perfect the biological CF card we should be free of the crushing rule of the big manufacturers...