Many years ago, the limiting factor on underwater photography was the roll of film inside the camera. If you were really lucky and loaded the film nice and tight inside the camera, it was possible to squeeze 38 or even 39 frames out of a 36 roll, and to be honest, I very rarely shot a full 36 roll, always keeping a few frames in reserve just in case I found something special at the end of a dive.
Occasionally, I was lucky to have a buddy as a packhorse and he/she would carry my spare Nikonos V and strobe, usually with a different lens attached.
When I moved over to a housed SLR, things became different. This was another league and I was frequently diving with other photographers, and no packhorse available to carry an additional housing. However, as a couple of my friends were boat owners we did have a luxury of the housings being submerged on 5M lines, so it was possible to submerge tow cameras in housings then choose which housing/camera/lens to shoot at the beginning of a dive and another at the end of the dive.
So what has this got to do with batteries?
When I moved over to digital underwater photography, the limiting factor changed from film to battery life.
Of course, batteries are used for the cameras (although my old trusty Nikon F3 worked without a battery, it used batteries to operate the motor drive), but the lighting systems or strobes as they are most commonly referred to, eat batteries for breakfast, dinner and tea.
For a short time, I used AA alkaline batteries then moved over to rechargeable Ni-Cads. But occasionally, I decided to go diving at short notice and the Ni-Cads were not charged properly and I ended up having to use alkaline. On one trip to Sharm El Sheikh, they did not work at all and I had to pay a rip-off price of US$10 for four AA Alkaline batteries, the vendor knew I had no choice, and I squeezed every last drop of power from these AAs before inserting the next ten dollars worth.
The problem with most strobes is that there is no indicator to show how much power is left unlike the camera rechargeable 
battery, whereas on the camera display screen, there is an icon informing you. Ni-Cads have a fantastic re-cycle time, much faster than alkaline batteries, however, when their power is diminished, they just stop completely without warning. Alkaline batteries, on the other hand, just take longer to charge up the strobe, and it is always possible to squeeze another flash out of the strobe, even if you have to wait up to 30 seconds or more for the strobe to charge.
So for the past few years I have been using alkaline batteries, and after about four dives I change the batteries for fresh ones and re-cycle the used ones into other electrical devices such as my hand-held GPS unit, electric toothbrush, clocks etc.
On my 2011 trip to Borneo, I calculated that I would need at least eight AA batteries per day to power my strobes for ten days diving, that means EIGHTY AA batteries, now that is heavy!
One of my dive buddies, Burhan, told me to try Lithium batteries as they should last double that of alkaline batteries from his experience. So this gave me an idea of comparing the two types and the cost effectiveness of one against the other. I was still going to be carrying a lot of batteries though.
Another underwater photographer, Alastair, suggested to me that I should invest in rechargeable batteries again and buy ENELOOP batteries (Ni-MH) as they apparently are the “bees’ knees” when it comes to this type of battery, although he did not know where to buy them in the UAE.
Fortunately, my Borneo trip was taking me via Singapore and some underwater camera shops, where I was able to pick up eight ENELOOP batteries and charger for $Sin34.00 (AED97.97), so the comparison was now getting a bit more complex.
As it transpired, the amount of diving I planned to do was cut short due to ear infections of both bacterial and fungal, so the comparison tests I had planned never happened, but I did move back to using the rechargeable batteries.
On my last overseas dive trip to the Philippines, I shot over 250 photographs with both strobes still firing strong by the end of three dives on the first day.
Recharging was done over a few hours for each set of four batteries along with the camera battery, which fortunately seems to last forever as I use manual focus underwater.
I have recently invested in a small solar panel with battery re-charger, which will also aid in charging my GoPro battery as well as iPhone and of course AA rechargeable batteries. This will primarily be for off-roading, but when traveling to remote dive sites, I will be bringing it along also.
I still carry eight Lithium AA batteries as back up on the boat when I go diving; Murphy is always around the next corner.
Published in July 2012
