Batteries are the lifeblood of all photographers. Even film photographers have fun with batteries, because our flashes and meters and whatnot all end up requiring power. And, even more than memory or film, batteries are one of the biggest items we're always frustrated by. My G7 and most digital SLRs are fairly nice, in that you can (and should) pull the battery from the camera after you are done shooting and stick it in the charger. But then I start dealing with batteries for my flash.

I've noticed that I suddenly have a lot of AA battery powered photo gear. There's the A95 which serves as my light/flash meter and photographic sketchpad that takes 4 AA batteries. There's 2 Sunpak 383 Supers and a 1 Sunpak 144PC, and each one takes 4 AA batteries. There's the kinda cruddy Sunpak Digital Flash that is now just used to trigger slaves off of my RB67 that takes 2 AA batteries. Finally, there's the Quantaray QS-1 that takes 2 AAA batteries

Previously, I talked about the basic facts behind batteries. Now, let's talk about how to put them into practice...