Sunday, September 15

Camera Coincidence

For purposes of cycling photos, I like a fairly small camera that has more zoom, pixels, and photo quality than I get with a cell phone camera. Up until a couple of years ago, I picked an Olympus VR-310. 14 megapixels and a 10X zoom worked well and the price was reasonable. Until it broke. To make a long story short, fixing digital cameras isn't in the cards unless one can do it oneself so I replaced it with a Nikon S80. The Nikon takes OK pictures as well, but it trades more reliable zooming for a 3X zoom limit.

Prices for these cameras drop quickly and it turned out I was able to replace the Olympus for not much more than shipping costs. All the extra goodies that came with the camera are great for the bare replacement camera. What I DIDN'T expect was that batteries aren't quite as manufacturer-specific as they'd have us believe. As it turns out, both cameras use the same battery and battery charger. Well, almost. The Nikon battery says "Nikon" on it and the Olympus battery says "Olympus." Same power rating.

This contrasts with Cateye bicycle headlights, some of which will not accept rechargeable AA batteries.

5 comments:

RANTWICK said...

That's a nice thing! First I've ever heard of electonics matching up for batteries... Score!

Steve A said...

Even better - it happened by pure luck!

limom said...

Battery awesomeness!

John Romeo Alpha said...

And with Nook e-books, which have non-replaceable batteries, and a different charger plug for each model. Too cool for micro-USB, I guess. I dream of a standard battery and charger system.

Steve A said...

I didn't mention it but the Nikon and Olympus also connect to the computer with a common cable!

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