Printable View
The Nikon one is $200, though that one comes with a fancy leatheresque holder :P ... and the third party ones (though they're actual batteries, not glorified holders) are WAY more expensive....
(Though I'm not disagreeing, kinda seems like they're charging that much for it because they can :P)
If you don't want it, don't buy it. Once you try it, I think you'll see the light. It's weather-sealed, so you can feel safe with your voltages amongst the water molecules. It's plug&play, so a little engineering went into it. It's got mounting options.
To clarify the battery selection questions earlier, a set of batteries must be in the flash regardless of menu options, to supply power to the circuit boards that manage the flash. If the CP-E4 is plugged into the flash, you can choose to create bursts of light via 8 batteries in the CP-E4 or all 12 batteries (CP-E4 plus the four in the flash). If you use all 12, it's likely that the flash's internal set would go dead first; in which case you'd better be ready to change four important batteries fast, and probably another 8 soon after. If you use just the external 8, you can disconnect the CP-E4 when you need to swap batteries in it and use the flash's internal set for a few shots, then go back to using the external batteries when they're swapped. I enjoyed using all 12 for a while, but now use just the external 8, allowing me to fall back to a nearly fresh set of 4 when I need to.
are there any AC options for using the 580exII?