Ms in the cold Lithium or Silver-Oxide ?

[spysmart]

It was cold and windy today : snow on the local hills.

I was walking around, playing with a newly arrived 35mm pancake skopar lens, with the M6 strap wrapped around wrist, so the camera was cold ( so were my hands) .

But I think the batteries were fading out - at least the meter was not any where near my sunny 16 estimates.

Anyone have any cold weather preferences : Lithium ( DL1/3N ) or Silver-Oxide ( SR44 ) ?

 

[clintock]

I believe the lithium type suffer first in the cold. They do in my model airplanes for sure.

 

[Magus]

Post deleted by posters request

 

[back alley]

silver oxide is best in the cold.

 

[Palaeoboy]

I believe the lithium type suffer first in the cold.

silver oxide is best in the cold.

I respectfully disagree. When I did some field work in the Antarctic I contacted Duracell and they sent me the specifications on their A76 MS76 and DL1/3N. It clearly showed that the Lithium lost viablity at -30 degrees while the Silver Oxide petered out long before then. The A76 is useless for cold weather altogether. After that time I made it a point to use DL1/3N's in my cameras whenever I could. And they always served me without fail. The film normally went brittle (tearing the sprockets) before the batteries ever faded. Keep in mind that some electronics fails when its too cold so this may give the allusion that your having battery fade. When my rangefinder of choice became the CLE I was no longer able to use the Lithium ones as its battery layout doesn't stack the batteries on top of each other. I have used it down south too but never the extreme that my Nikons had originally and the MS76 have always worked fine too. But the claims of Lithium cold weather performance that Magus wondered about stems from Duracells own claims, whether to believe that is up to the individual. The -30 claim stuck in my head because I thought it was a bit optimistic when I first read it but I never had them fail to challenge that.

Note that Lithium Ion rechargeables are not the same so that may give rise some conflicts. I dont believe they do all that well in the cold but thats only hearsay on my part. Back when I looked into the matter of cold weather batteries NiCads were the only rechargable batteries available at the time.

 

[Nikon Bob]

The DL1/3N or equivilent battery is the only one I will use in my Nikon SLRs, I don't have an M that takes batteries. I have used my FM2n in -20/-25 C weather mounted on a tripod and not had the meter fail. In my SLRs these batteries seem to last much longer and don't leak. I have to agree with Palaeoboy that electronics may act up in the cold and that might look like battery trouble. They cheap enough so you could try them out and see if it makes a difference in the way your camera acts in the cold.

Bob

 

[spysmart]

Well the batteries in the Camera were Alkaline ( ironically all I could find in Iceland last summer ).

Following the Duracell comments, I found this on their site

There is not a corresponding on for Silver-Oxide, but one list I found rated Silver-Oxide down to -10degC and LiMnO2 to -30degC. I don't know if current handling alters this advantage.

Last thing this evening, I managed to buy some Lithium cells in Jessops ( their saving grace is they are open Sundays ).
But that was not without trouble : the young assistant had obviously never heard of DL1/3N batteries, and was not able to find any even with me describing them.
I left cursing things about the state of 'camera' shops.

Half an hour later, after being equally disgusted that Boots also did not have any batteries, I went back to Jessops and waited for an older assistant.
He quickly found some. The problem seems to have been they had switched battery supplier from Duracell to Energizer. Amongst the rows and rows of CR2s and 123s was one row with all the 'less common' cells stacked on top of each other.

I walked out with some 2L76 3v lithium cells.

 

[back alley]

facts is facts so i wont argue...but i have used silver oxide in my cameras here in the frozen north, in -30 to -40c degrees for hours at a time and they have never failed me.

the original lithium were poor in the cold because they had some sort of reaction and part of the innards went to powder in the very cold. i have been told they no longer do that.

 

[peter_n]

I get my lithiums online. A number of places have decent prices, here's one:

http://www.zbattery.com/ges-lc1-3n.html