Everybody Needs a Good Charger: La Cross BC-900

I just put in my order for the La Crosse Technology BC-900 on Amazon for $40. With an extra SB-20 (actually, two more, but one isn't working) I'm going to need to have more Ni-MH batteries in the rotation. Plus, my son just got a Game Boy Advance, which is pretty frugal on batteries, but it'll be nice to have some rechargeables for it. My goal is to never buy an alkaline battery again!

My existing charger is as old as it could possibly be, a Radioshack fast-charging model bought soon after NiMHs came out. Let's just say it does a good job of making the batteries VERY hot, which is horrible for battery life.

If you charge a decent number of batteries (running flashes, for example!), it is worth getting a "good" charger for battery conditioning. If you charge a LOT of batteries, you could get a second 8-cell slow charger, but you'll still want to be able to test and condition batteries with a good charger. Good chargers like the BC-900:

1. Charge each cell individually (so you don't have to match discharge state)
   
2. Give you status on the condition of each cell in mAH capacity (so you can toss the bad ones)
3. Monitor temperature when charging (the number one destroyer of NiMH batteries)
4. Never overcharge the batteries
   
5. Do conditioning cycles (discharge fully, then recharge)
6. Give you full control over charging rate (if you have time, do the safer, slow charge)
   

I'll review the BC-900 when I get it, but Amazon has great reviews on the BC-900 and it's competitors. The high-level survey is:

• La Crosse Technology BC-900 AlphaPower Battery Charger ($40 shipped) Actually the older model, although it charges at higher currents than the BC700 (1000mA and 1800mA). Includes 4AA and 4AAA batteries (not great capacity, but you can always use more batteries), 4 C and 4 D adapters (letting you put your AA batteries into units that take C or D batteries -- my daughter has a toy that could use those!), and a carrying case (which I don't really care about).
  
• La Crosse Technology BC-700 Alpha Power Battery Charger ($30 shipped) This is the newer model and it may have slightly newer firmware (charging logic). Nothing has been published about firmware differences though, so I expect they're slight if anything. Doesn't include batteries, adapters, or case. But cheaper!
  
• Maha Powerex MH-C9000 WizardOne Charger-Analyzer ($64 shipped) The big momma charger on the block, allowing 2000mA charging rates for all four batteries (the BC-900 can only charge at 1800mA for two). More expensive, though, and the user interface is annoying. Does include a few more reconditioning/break-in features that the La Crosse chargers don't have. I think it includes 4 batteries, but I haven't been able to confirm.
  
• Sony BCG-34HRMF4 Battery Charger with LCD Display and 4 AA Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries ($29 shipped) This is probably the best of the rest, but it lacks a display of the actual capacity of the batteries and instead displays 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, full for each cell. The price includes 4 AA batteries (2300mAh, I think). If you are really tight on money, this might be a good option.
  

(mouse-over those links to see current prices)

I went with the BC-900 because I'd like to have that extra 33% charging rate in case I need to get some batteries charged in a hurry and the extras (8 batteries, adapters, case) make the extra $10 worth it. I'll let you know how it works when I get it!

Also, it is worth noting that the prices on these chargers fluctuate A LOT and it appears they're currently lower than they've ever been before. It's a good time to buy!

A Few Things I Learned in Nice, France

I meant to post this a few days ago (in the middle of my trip) but it kept getting put off... I'll have more pictures in a few days once I get home to a computer that can actually handle images without slowing way down...

Anyway, here's a few things I learned in Nice, France:

• Look both ways before you cross the street. Then... look again just in case. Those little scooters move fast!
  
• You can tell a lot about what a culture values based on shelf-space in a supermarket. The French value cheese, hard-crusted bread, olive oil, and hosiery. Americans value fresh milk in volume and breakfast cereal.
• ATMs are a better way to get euros than currency exchange. Some people say they have hefty fees (although my statement hasn't reflected any huge fees). But, either way, withdraw in large chunks just to be safe.
• Apparently, if your waiter says his credit card machine is broken, that means you have the wrong kind of credit card (I guess American cards do not have a microchip to make them "smart" like European cards). I got that once at a local restaurant. In other words, never assume you can just use credit!
  

• You CAN drink the water. At least in the cities.
  
• It is hard to buy food in volume, at least in the city. I'm not even sure if they have a Costco equivalent here! As an example, at right is a standard size of tomato sauce. As in the second largest (the largest is about a pint!).
  
• The most important word to know is 'toilette'. At least three times I've been in a museum/restaurant/etc and asked for a bathroom and was met with very strange looks. One time, I completely forgot the French word and tried restroom, bathroom, etc. All I got was a blank look. So I went back and asked the guys I was with for the word, and when I said toilette to the server it was an immediate look of understanding.
  
• Tipping is not really mandatory, but it's ok to leave a little if you want to. That, and no taxes, means that a dish listed on the menu for 15 euros will cost you... 15 euros. It has been glorious not to worry about the extra cost of items!
• Nobody owns a cloths dryer. That's what your window is for! Although, my hotel expressly forbids hanging clothes to dry on the balcony!
  
• Some toilets have two buttons. These can be confusing, especially when I don't know which button is for Number 1 and which is for Number 2. I love the idea though, and it'd be great for our house at night ("If it's yellow, let it mellow...").
  
• If you can, avoid taxis. Apparently I'm going to be paying 30 euros tomorrow (about $45) for a 6 km ride to the airport. Most buses are $1 and trains are quite inexpensive too.
• After five years of French in high school (and a delay of 13 years), 90% of French people speak better English than I speak French. Of the other 10%, most would not want to get into a conversation with a tourist anyway. (In the interest of not making anyone angry, I should say that almost everyone here is very nice and friendly -- they just all speak English very well!)

Anyway, I'll get more pictures up in a few days. I enjoyed my stay, but I'm definitely ready to go home now!

Microstock: First Sale!

I had my first microstock sale ever at Fotolia yesterday and it turns out to be the very first photo I uploaded to any microstock site!

Of course, I can't get too excited, because someone ordered the smallest possible size and I made a grand total of 33 cents. But it is something, at least :)

BTW, I've got about four posts in various stages of completion which I'll get up when I return to the States. My time in Nice has been a good vacation, although I haven't been focusing on photography too much (in other words -- don't expect any great pictures from it).

Also, today I'm hoping to visit a photography museum here in Nice. Hopefully it's nice! (har, har, har)

Microstock: More Rejections

I had a few more rejects from Dreamstime (12 of 16 images approved, 4 images pending) which are listed on this page. Also, of 19 submissions to Fotolia, 11 were approved, which is about what I expected. Dreamstime is more lenient than Fotolia, at least from what I've heard. I'll post more about my recent experiences with Fotolia in the future -- the tentative title is called 'Fun with Keywording the Second Time'...

The light-painted cash shot that opens the post isn't too much of a surprise; microstock hates underexposure, especially if certain items (like the coins) aren't recognizable. I should have known better on that one. Oddly enough, Fotolia approved the image. Other low key images haven't done well, including the Angry Blender (didn't bother submitting it to Fotolia) and Jeju Sunrise (FT rejected, DT pending). On all these images I actually spent a lot of time playing with the image to improve contrast -- I tried doing an HDR-type process on Jeju Sunrise but the sand had a lot of artifacts so I put that off and submitted the low-key version.

My two bee images took a hit too on both sites, although I went in to the process knowing the detail wasn't quite there in both images. The second image I went back and forth on submitting it because the composition just didn't seem right (and that nasty shadow on the bee's back) but went ahead and submitted it anyway.

Both images were rejected from DT for poor lighting/contrast/exposure and subject too common or two specific. The better of the images (the first) made it through at Fotolia though and the second was rejected for quality of the photograph.

Really surprising with the rejection of both fuchsia shots at Fotolia for overabundant photo category. While they have a ton of fuchsia shots, one one is on black and it seems significantly different from my shots. Personally, I was a bit surprised the shots were accepted at Dreamstime because I blew some highlights and couldn't get them back. Oh well...

Even more surprising was Fotolia's rejection of my Green Stairway shot from Jeju. They said that:

The photographs in the Fotolia database are intended for sale as illustration of brochures, magazines, websites, and presentations. Your photographic work is excellent but does not meet the needs of the Fotolia customer base.

Sorry, but I disagree on that one. It's a solid image that has more merit than many of my other shots that were accepted!

Finally, Fotolia rejected three shots which included the Stanford dish (I don't have them elsewhere on the site, but they are pretty good -- I'll see if I can add them to this post tonight). They cited quality of the photograph, but I really don't see that. Those images were technically pretty good and I feel like they maybe rejected for another reason. Oh well, I'll see how they do at Dreamstime in a few days.

This post might seem like a big complaint about my rejections, but it is anything but. In 75% of cases, I agree with the rejections (and I feel that some of my shots should have been rejected but weren't). More importantly, I'm putting this stuff up to give anyone new to microstock an idea of what is declined, refused, and rejected.

The rejections don't bother me that much. At this point, I'm getting more worried about the commercial nature of my portfolio in general and the economics of it all. But that's another post altogether...

Microstock: First Refusal

Dreamstime gave me my first refusal today for the Angry Blender image above, stating:

• We have reviewed your file and this is not quite what we're looking for.
• Lack of composition. Please visit the Stock Photo Utilities section of our site or the message boards for more information on how to produce stock-oriented images.
• Poor lighting setup, poor contrast or incorrect exposure.
  

I've looked over the image again, and I have to admit -- I agree.

There isn't enough contrast in the face to draw the eye to it. Granted, this is one of my favorite images, but I need to dodge the "face" of the blender a bit more. But... I'm not going to bother, because let's face it -- it wouldn't do that well in stock anyway. Honestly... who could need an angry blender for their layout?

While it is a bummer to get an image rejected, I'm pretty surprised it hadn't happened yet (nine of ten images have passed). I'll take a 90% acceptance rate anytime.

P.S. Currently, the approval wait at Dreamstime is 5-6 days along with 1-2 days of wait for indexing into search. This means a wait of about a week from submission to images getting views. Don't expect to make money fast, that's for sure!