Originally Posted by jimr
Sorry, but that's incorrect. NiMH batteries have lower internal resistance than alkaline batteries, and thus NiMH batteries can deliver power faster to recharge the capacitor more rapidly than alkaline batteries.
The Canon flash manuals say nothing on this issue, but if you can bring yourself to look at a Nikon manual, recycle times are listed. For example, the SB-800 manual (p. 19) states that NiMH rechargeable batteries take ~4 seconds to recycle whereasalkaline batteries will take ~6 seconds to recycle- that's 50% longer with the alkaline AA's than with the rechargeable batteries.
Also incorrect, actually. The higher the mAh, the more flashes you get from a charge. The mAh value is a measure of the battery's capacity, i.e. how much charge it can hold, not how fast it can deliver it (although a fully charged battery will deliver power faster, because as charge is depleted, internal resistance increases). The recycling speed is primarily determined by the chemistry of the battery being used, which determines the internal resistance. That's also apparent from the manual linked above, since rechargeable NiCDs with 1000 mAh have the same 4 second recycle time as rechargeable NiMHs with 2000 mAh.
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