Minolta DiMAGE 7i

The original Dimage 7 had a reputation as a rather power-hungry camera, and the 7i very much follows in its footsteps. Still, I don't think it's quite as bad as some people have made out. - With a high-capacity set of NiMH AA cells, you should be able to get a solid 90 minutes of run time in its worst-case power consumption mode. Use the EVF instead of the rear-panel LCD, and your continuous run time stretchs to about an hour and 45 minutes. Use the auto-off feature for the EVF, and you should be able to leave the camera in capture mode for a couple of hours on a freshly charged set of batteries. (And in "sleep" mode, the camera consumes only the barest trickle of electricity.)

The second thing I discovered is that a good charger is possibly even more important than your choice of batteries. (!) Even some rather expensive chargers won't bring a set of batteries anywhere near to a state of full charge. Thus, the wrong charger can turn your 1800 mAh batteries into a set of 900 mAh ones! I'm hoping to expand the Battery Shootout article into a whole "power solutions" area for the site, to share my findings, but for now can just say that my favorite charger is the Maha C204 (shown above). The Quest Q2 and Alltek AT-5798 units also do a good job, although our test sample of the Q2 developed a bad circuit after only a little use. So... Get a couple of sets of 1800 mAh batteries and a good charger, and you should easily get an hour plus of continuous operation of the Dimage 7i (in worst-case power consumption mode) per charge.

I mentioned external power packs above: Given the type of camera this is, you're going to want to use it for extended periods. What to do, besides turning it off quickly? Apparently knowing our penchant for such things, we've gotten a lot of questions from readers about external battery packs with this camera. The problem is that most NiMH-based packs don't work, as the Dimage 7i apparently needs a higher voltage at its external power terminal than these packs deliver. (The camera's power terminal is labeled "6 volts", most such packs don't come up to that voltage when subjected to high loads.) As I've found with several other cameras, the solution is a LiIon battery pack, which has a higher output voltage. Maha makes one (shown above), sold under their PowerEx brand. Running about $60, this unit provides 1400 mAh of power at a terminal voltage (under moderate load) of a bit over 8 volts. In my testing, the Dimage 7i ran just fine from this pack. The PowerBank's capacity should be enough to give you an extra hour to hour and a half of continuous running in maximum-power mode. (With the LCD enabled in capture mode.) Combine that with a set of the 1800 NiMH cells internally, and you'll be good for a full 3 hours or so of nonstop, worst-case operation. - Easily all day if you're judicious about turning the camera off when not in use. One note - Maha makes both NiMH and LiIon versions of the PowerBank, make sure you get the LiIon model for the Dimage 7. (Model number MH-DPB140LI.) Click here for more information, or to order online. Highly recommended for this camera!