The Canon ST-E2

As a follow-up to my post from yesterday, let me back up a little and set the stage for a multi-faceted question, in the hope that perhaps someone will know some of (or ideally all of) the answers. Recently I purchased an ST-E2 from Canon which allows you to trigger a flash without cables or wires. It uses a radio signal an infra-red signal and when mounted on your camera, pressing the shutter, trips the sensor in the ST-E2 which in turn fires the flash. This ST-E2 uses a fairly common battery type, the 2CR5, and is readily available through any number of vendors.Since it has become a battery associated with my camera gear, I am trying to piece together a battery system of rechargeable batteries and a dedicated charger that can accommodate all the batteries in my bag. This includes the camera batteries, the flash batteries, and now this 2CR5. While I have found the NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) batteries to be of far superior performance (also as indicated on several websites like Imaging Resource and others), I am unable to find the 2CR5 with any retailer as a NiMH battery. They only come in the Lithium format. So, my question is threefold:

  1. Can a Lithium battery be charged in a charger built for NiMH batteries?
  2. Is the 2CR5 format capable of being produced as a NiMH battery?
  3. If so, what type of time frame are we looking at before something like a NiMH 2CR5 is available in the marketplace?

If the NiMH 2CR5 is something that will likely come to pass…it may be a good idea for me to use disposable batteries in the interim. Otherwise, I will have to adjust my battery purchases to include a NiMH system and a Lithium system. I would love to hear what any readers happen to think on this, so please feel free to make a post in the comments, or as always, you can email me.

Meanwhile, have a great weekend. Happy shooting and watch those apertures!

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