Digital BW, The Print

Robert writes:

> Energy consumption, for me, is a huge limiting
> factor for digital in terms of practical use.
> I can't tell you how many times I grabbed the D1x
> and I had lost battery power, and missed the
> shot.

At least for the foreseeable future, it will only get worse.  Batteries are
an extremely serious problem for all sorts of portable devices, but
especially digital cameras, which consume enormous amounts of power.  And
they will consume even more as they increase in resolution.  And currently
there are no promising new technologies on the horizon for packing more
power into batteries.  It's probably good that there are not, in a sense,
because batteries already contain enough juice to serve as very effective
bombs--only internal resistance prevents them from being much more dangerous
(and lithium single-use batteries and some others have low internal
resistance, which means they require built-in overcurrent protection so that
they do not explode when short-circuited or too deeply discharged ... yes,
it has happened).