Modern Nikon D-SLR camera that takes standard AA batteries

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 22:09:08 GMT, Wayne wrote:

What you need is a SB-800 flash unit, for better flash pictures too. The
Camera batteries will last forever then, and the four Ni-Mh AA in the SB-800
are good for maybe 150 shots.

Will this SB-800 reduce the red eye I seem to constantly get when taking
photographs in lower light with the Nikon D50 D-SLR camera?

TIA,
Amanda W.

On Sun, 30 Jul 2006 04:50:35 GMT, Amanda Williams wrote:

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:10:13 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:

If you had even tried googling "d50 AA" your second hit would have provided
you a link that listed not one but two different brands of such a device.

Oh my. I had previously searched the Nikon web site and did not find any AA
adapters for the Nikon D50 D-SLR but I do now see these $50 non-Nikon D50
AA adapters now, thanks to you.

It seems these Nikon D50 AA adapters pack astoundingly more costower
using the $12 dollar 6 NiMH 1.35v 2400mAh AA batteries than they do when
holding the proprietary $150 dollar 2 EN-EL3 7.4v 1400mAh lithium ion or 2
EN-EL3a 7.4v 1500mAh lithium ion batteries.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...lance&n=502394

Is my math correct? Those of you who use these Nikon D50 AA adapters, do
you get roughly the same amount of power (2400mAh) out of twelve dollars of
NiMH AA batteries as you do with one hundred and fifty dollars of
proprietary lithium ion EN-EL3a (1500 mAh x2 = 3000 mAh)?

TIA,
Amanda W.


Your math mightbe correct, but your shopping skills need work. A
quick search with Froogle finds them at $21.99 each from
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.proc...eed.P2K+ACD253
(or http://tinyurl.com/zhcl9)
or for $7.99 from
http://www.pricegrabber.com/user_sal...&mode=googleff
http://tinyurl.com/luhnz

or for $10.99 from
http://www.alpinetop.com/p/10002133/...for-Nikon.html
http://tinyurl.com/kyhjk

Yes. You can point the flash away and use bounced light. You can use
a diffuser to soften the light.

--
Joan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joan-in-manly

"Amanda Williams" wrote in message
...
: On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 22:09:08 GMT, Wayne wrote:
:
: What you need is a SB-800 flash unit, for better flash pictures
too. The
: Camera batteries will last forever then, and the four Ni-Mh AA in
the SB-800
: are good for maybe 150 shots.
:
: Will this SB-800 reduce the red eye I seem to constantly get when
taking
: photographs in lower light with the Nikon D50 D-SLR camera?
:
: TIA,
: Amanda W.

In rec.photo.digital Amanda Williams wrote:

: Will this SB-800 reduce the red eye I seem to constantly get when taking
: photographs in lower light with the Nikon D50 D-SLR camera?

The solution to red eye in ALL brands of camera is to move the flash away
from the lens. Red eye occurs when the light from the flash rebounds from
the back of the eye, to the camera lens. Most built in flashes are way too
close to the lens. So the further you can move the flash the better. A
flash on a hot shoe will be better than the built in, and a flash on an
extension cable held at arms length from the camera (either by a bracket
or with one hand) will be better. One other trick is to use a flash on a
hot shoe with a tilt head that will allow you to aim the flash at a
convenient nearby, light colored surface. By bouncing the flash the angle
of the light from the flash to the lens will be greatly increased. Of
course if the surface you are bouncing off of is too far away the light
will be reduced. And if the surface is colored it can impart a color cast
to the light from the flash which can have "interresting" effects on your
subject. But at least you won't have red eye.

Randy

==========
Randy Berbaum
Champaign, IL

The company I work for in Melbourne Australia (www.kirkscameras.com.au)
sells a battery grip, 2 Lion batteries and an AA holder for the grip
(AA's not supplied). Available for the D50 and some other SLR cameras.
Paul

Amanda Williams wrote:
I currently own the Nikon D50 but I'm sick and tired of the stock
EN-EL3battery going dead after only a day or two on the road (I use the
flash on every shot). Even carrying an extra EN-EL3a doesn't solve the
problem as it goes dead just two days later, leaving me in the lurch not
even a week into my trip.

It wouldn't be so bad to be forced to carry the bulky MH-18a Nikon battery
charger everywhere I go when on vacation except that I have to also carry
all the other different chargers my cell phones and those of my kids, my
video camera, my computer, my PDA, my skype phone charger, my usb hub, etc.

It's just too many freakin' chargers. I'm trying to standardize on just AA
and USB for all my hand-held electronics accessorites.

So, I'm ditching the Nikon D50 for a digital SLR that takes AA batteries. I
found a few from Fuji and Pentax but none from Nikon. Did I miss something?

So, I ask:
Is there a modern D-SLR camera from Nikon (one that takes AA batteries)?
Or, at least a modern AA battery pack for the Nikon D50 D-SLR?

TIA,
Amanda W.

What is the point in playing silly buggers with the followups ?

Amanda Williams wrote
Rina wrote

All kidding aside, it's amazing how many
chargers we have to carry for all our toys.

Does anyone know if we can recharge the Nikon D50 proprietary
batteries using the mini USB connector in the camera?

Unlikely.

All my new hand-held gadgets are mini-USB (i.e., Motorola
cellphone, earpiece, PDA, SD/CF card reader, etc.).

If Nikon engineers haven't thought of this yet, does any other digital SLR
recharge through the mini-USB connector in the camera? If not, why not?

Basically because the 500ma limit with USB is too low to be viable with a camera.

We have to bring the Windows PC along anyway to dump the 2 GB
Scan Disc Ultra II SD card onto the laptop. We may as well charge
all our apparatus off the one PC charger via the USB ports.

If this hasn't been thought of yet by either the D-SLR consumer or
by the D-SLR manufacturers, how would we get them to consider
this vast improvement (this quantum leap is on the order of adding
luggage wheels to all my suitcases in the past twenty years).

Corse they have considered it.

On Sun, 30 Jul 2006 04:58:25 GMT, Amanda Williams wrote:

Will this SB-800 reduce the red eye I seem to constantly get when taking
photographs in lower light with the Nikon D50 D-SLR camera?

Redeye is produced when light from the flash is reflected by the
eye back into the lens. The effect is greatest when this angle
(flash to eye to lens) is smallest. A simpler way of putting it is
that if you increase the distance from the flash tube to the lens,
you'll generally produce less redeye. When using the SB-800, its
flash tube/reflector is usually *much* farther from the lens than
when using a built-in popup flash, so you'll get much less redeye in
your pictures. Even less if it's raised higher by being attached to
a bracket or by bouncing the flash off a wall or ceiling.


[from other messages:]

Does anyone know if we can recharge the Nikon D50 proprietary atteries
using the mini USB connector in the camera?
. . .
If Nikon engineers haven't thought of this yet, does any other digital SLR
recharge through the mini-USB connector in the camera? If not, why not? We
have to bring the Windows PC along anyway to dump the 2 GB Scan Disc Ultra
II SD card onto the laptop. We may as well charge all our apparatus off the
one PC charger via the USB ports.

Probably not. I don't have a D50 so I can't say for sure, but the
problem is that the USB standard defines the voltage and current
that the bus is able to supply, and it's generally too little to
effectively charge large batteries. I recall reading messages
several years ago concerning whether the USB could be used to
recharge the batteries in some of the first Palm PDAs that used
rechargeable batteries instead of the usual pair of AAA alkalines.
The answer was that only a few models could do that, and it didn't
do it very well. If the separate charger was used, the batteries
would recharge rapidly, but if the USB power was used, they'd charge
at a very slow trickle charge rate. I'm not even sure that if left
charging overnight that the batteries would be fully charged in the
morning. The much larger batteries used by the D50 would probably
take too long to fully charge for a USB charging solution to be
practical.


It seems these Nikon D50 AA adapters pack astoundingly more costower
using the $12 dollar 6 NiMH 1.35v 2400mAh AA batteries than they do when
holding the proprietary $150 dollar 2 EN-EL3 7.4v 1400mAh lithium ion or 2
EN-EL3a 7.4v 1500mAh lithium ion batteries.
. . .
Is my math correct? Those of you who use these Nikon D50 AA adapters, do
you get roughly the same amount of power (2400mAh) out of twelve dollars of
NiMH AA batteries as you do with one hundred and fifty dollars of
proprietary lithium ion EN-EL3a (1500 mAh x2 = 3000 mAh)?

Soon after the NiMH cells have been charged and begun supplying
power, their voltage will be about 1.2 volts, not 1.35. So 6 cells
would provide the nearly the same voltage initially (7.2v, slightly
less), and at 2400 mAh should provide substantially more energy than
a single EN-EL3a, but somewhat less than two of them. You should be
able to get a pair of non-Nikon brand Li-Ion batteries for
considerably less than $150, but you'll still pay quite a bit more
than $12 for them. The fact that NiMH batteries have a much higher
self discharge rate than Li-Ion batteries would make the latter more
convenient to use if the batteries were used so lightly that they
wouldn't need to be recharged more frequently than every month or
so. That you use them so heavily (needing to recharge the EN-EL3
every day or two) would make the self-discharge difference between
the two battery types a non-issue. But if you go the AA route, be
conservative. If the 6 AA NiMH cells would normally be able to
power the D50 for 10 hours, don't wait that long. Replace them with
a second charged set after 7 or 8 hours. Unless the battery
holder/grip has been carefully designed to shut down the camera when
the first AA cell has no remaining charge, you could damage that
cell if you continue to use the camera. Of course if that does
happen, you'd only be out $2 for the single damaged cell. If the
same thing happened with a proprietary battery pack, whether NiMH or
Li-Ion, it's very unlikely that you'd be able to fix it, and would
have a much higher battery pack replacement cost than $2.

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 22:06:08 -0700, Bob Ward wrote:

Your math mightbe correct, but your shopping skills need work. A
quick search with Froogle finds them at $21.99 or for $7.99 from
or for $10.99

Can this be true?
Nikon EN-EL3a 1500 mAh lithium-ion batteries for less than 22 dollars?

I find this hard to believe since I paid over $75 for my last EN-EL3a
replacement battery pack.

Would anyone else buy the $8, $11, or $22 dollar batteries referenced?
(Are they legit?)

TIA,
Amanda W.

On Sun, 30 Jul 2006 03:24:58 -0400, ASAAR wrote:

The 6 Ni-MH AA cells would provide the nearly the same voltage
(7.2v) and at 2400 mAh should provide substantially more energy than
a single Nikon 1500 mAh EN-EL3a, but somewhat less than two of them.

I thought so. It seemed too amazing that, for $12, I could get 2400 mAh of
Ni-MH battery power while the Nikon EN-EL3a only gave me 1500 mAh of Li-ion
battery power. From a purely power standpoint, the generic nickel metal
hydride batteries beat the pants off the proprietary lithium ion
formulations it seems.

You should be able to get a pair of non-Nikon brand Li-Ion batteries
considerably less than $150, but you'll still pay quite a bit more
than $12 for them.

Hmmm. The quoted $8, $11, and $22 dollars for the Nikon EN-EL3a seems just
too good to be true. Can we truly buy the Nikon EN-EL3a lithium ion battery
for about the same price as six AA Ni-MH batteries? If that is true, then
the math suddenly switches wholly in the favor of the lithium ion
batteries.

But, I suspect those suggested $8/$11/$22 dollar amounts for the Nikon
EN-EL3a are just too good to be true. Can someone concur that they are
indeed true? If so, I'll buy a batch of them just like I do with my AA
batteries!

(Where do YOU buy your Nikon EN-EL3a batteries and for how much?)

TIA,
Amanda W.

On Sun, 30 Jul 2006 08:51:50 GMT, Amanda Williams wrote:

Hmmm. The quoted $8, $11, and $22 dollars for the Nikon EN-EL3a seems just
too good to be true. Can we truly buy the Nikon EN-EL3a lithium ion battery
for about the same price as six AA Ni-MH batteries? If that is true, then
the math suddenly switches wholly in the favor of the lithium ion
batteries.

But, I suspect those suggested $8/$11/$22 dollar amounts for the Nikon
EN-EL3a are just too good to be true. Can someone concur that they are
indeed true? If so, I'll buy a batch of them just like I do with my AA
batteries!

It's difficult to say whether or not you'd get decent batteries
for those prices. Some people apparently do, others don't. Some
have complained that their cheap battery worked for a couple of
charges and they died. There should be protective circuitry within
Li-Ion battery packs to protect against overheating or fires, and
some cheap batteries are said to lack the circuitry.



(Where do YOU buy your Nikon EN-EL3a batteries and for how much?)

I don't. My only Nikon cameras weren't digital and used AA
batteries. I've bought replacements for the proprietary batteries
that were used in old Canon Powershots from B&H, J&R and Adorama,
where the prices were about $20 from the latter two and more from
B&H. But even B&H's prices were well below the original Canon
battery prices (about $50). There's another reason besides the
obvious one for getting a AA battery grip for the D50. Insurance.
Some people could use the camera for several years and then lose
interest in photography and pack it up for 10 or 20 years. If they
then take it out of storage to either use once more or to give the
camera to someone else, there's no guarantee that the proprietary
batteries will still be available. But AA batteries will be. I'm
sure that in the future there will be better, much more capable
cameras. But the D50 should still be able to produce photos as well
as it does today, just as my much older Nikon F's will, assuming
that film and its processing doesn't become practical only for
wealthy, obsessed film fans. This may not be of interest for many
people, but I tend to use all kinds of electronic devices and
cameras far longer than most users, replacing them either when they
can no longer perform satisfactorily or when they finally die.