I’ve been thinking more about my battery issues from two weeks ago and another thing that’s bugged me is that it just takes too long to get my inventory of batteries recharged once I’ve drained them all. I’d already thought of buying a couple of extra chargers, but I didn’t like the idea of having to manage a bunch of extra cords along with everything else.
This morning I was trolling eBay for a new source for some extra batteries when I stumbled on this style of charger:
It’s a little hard to tell, but notice how the AC plug flips out from the back. That’s right: no cord. It dawned on me that I could order a few of these guys, plug them all into a power strip, and I’d have a multi-battery charging station. So I’ve ordered three of them from a guy on eBay for about $25 total (shipping included). I’ve never bought from him before, but his feedback rating is high. Plus, $25 isn’t that much to lose if my plan falls apart. I’ll be sure to post a follow up on how it works out.
Canon sells a branded dual battery charger, but I read in a post on Photo.net that it doesn’t actually charge them both at the same time. What it does is charge one, then the other in sequence. Yeah, seems kind of dumb to me too. Plus, the $120 price tag isn’t very appealing either.
I also think I’ve figured out which seller I’m going to order a new stock of batteries from. Right now I’m just waiting for him to answer a question, and then I’ll buy a half dozen or so and take my old ones to the recycler.
My memory card capacity is up to a point where I’ll likely tire of shooting before I fill all of my cards. At the moment, my only limiting factor seems to be battery power, and I don’t ever want to be in a situation again where I have to quit shooting because I’ve run out of juice. That’s just poor planning.