<p>One is lucky just to have a metered camera that reacts to light after so many years. My collecting & using experience: At least 50% of the battery driven meters are already dead, and I'm guessing the rest are on a downhill slide. Some likely culprits: dust, oxidation to the wires, environmental pollutants, heat, cold, dropped cameras, sticky needles, batteries left in the camera that seriously leaked powder and goo.<br>
Maybe part of that 50% failure rate is due to the incorrect battery voltage? Who will ever know.<br>
I have used 1.5 v alkaline & silver batteries for many years in cameras with working meters designed for 1.35 v. I really can't say the results were beyond the latitude of the film I used. Also, those camera meters did not seem to suffer subsequent battery caused failure year after year that I'm yet aware of, but I'm sure failures will eventually occur for any number of reasons. Then there's those camera meters that have friendlier circuitry (bridged?) where the exposure presumably stays the same?<br>
One wonders why a company like Mamiya chose to use silver batteries in various 35mm cameras way back in the 1960's while so many other companies preferred mercury?</p>