I thought so too, especially in light of also getting 8 other batteries (in addition to the 8 Eneloops), the adapters for C&D Cells and the travel bag.
Rick
I thought so too, especially in light of also getting 8 other batteries (in addition to the 8 Eneloops), the adapters for C&D Cells and the travel bag.
Rick
While I rarely use nicads in my flash (430ex and vivitar 385HV) they are usually good for a few 100 pops at full and more on manual. I primarly use a sealed lead acid external battery that I made based on The Black Box. TBB sells for around 100 or so and also has a smaller version, if your good with electronics, I can write up some instructions and a parts list for you to build your own. Ive shot weeks on a single charge and it also greatly increases the recycle time.
Don't NiMH batterys have a memory or something? I use 12 (4 at a time) of them in my 580EX II, and they seem to last shorter than they used to.
Peety, the milliamp-hours are a measure of the life of the battery, not the power....
But I am wondering if anyone has trouble with batteries not charging the flash capacitors right after you put them into the flash. I have the 430 EX II and some B&H brand 2900 mAh NiMH batteries and sometimes when I put them in the flash right after a charge, the pilot light doesn't ever come on. The charger is slow but has cool features like independent charge displays and stuff, but I wonder if I have a couple dead batteries (I only have 8 total) or the charger says they are charged but they are not.
I shot a wedding and one set died right away and then the second set went for hundreds of shots. Anyone have this experience.
Originally Posted by Stephen Probert
Yes and no. If you want to chase some technicalities and/or grill me on semantics, I'm ready.
Regardless, I've had awful results with the B&H/Impact 2900mAh batteries. Older ones arrived more consistent, newer ones arrived with some dead cells upon arrival. Over the 2+ years I've had them, they've continued to go downhill - significant variations in the amount of energy needed to return them to a full charge, and several additional cells have died.
Looking at the reason this thread started, my various comments come down to a common point: some brands are better than others, and if there's one or more bad batteries within a set, your flash might not work for long on that set. Using a rapid charger can have detrimental effects on your batteries. I recommend the La Crosse BC-700 chargers (cheaper than the BC-900, but I have two of each model) and the Sanyo Eneloop batteries (I have 48 of these and will be ordering more next month).
We're a Canon/Profoto family: five cameras, sixteen lenses, fifteen Profoto lights, too many modifiers.
I was able to get Sanyo Eneloop batteries and a charger locally, at Costco surprisingly. Right out of the pack, I was able to take at least 150+ shots with my 580EX before I had to recharge. I am totally impressed compared to the Eveready NiMH that lasted only around 20 shots after a 9 hour charge. I'm currently running down the pre-charge on my second set of Eneloops and the first set is ready to go again.
Thanks for the great advice on the Eneloops.
I second the Eneloops.
So I have Pearstone batteries and charger, I thought these were also B&H brand, but maybe they are not. Anyone have trouble with these?
As far as technicalities: milliamp-hours are a unit of charge, how much energy the battery holds, but the battery disperses charge at the same rate (current, amps) assuming the same draw from the flash. Power is not the rate of charge dispersed, but the rate of energy dispersed (watts, or joules per second) but it is proportional to the square of the current, so it is also constant assuming the same flash settings. So the milliamp-hours doesn't tell you the power the battery puts out, but the life of the battery. Where batteries differ, I think, are in their voltages, depending on their chemical makeup, so when four are in series you may not get enough voltage. Semantics are important because someone should not try to buy a higher-life battery thinking it will charge their flash faster.
I guess the original "wave off" comment was too obscure. Lest I remind you that you've dredged up a thread that's been dormant for 4-5 months, my original post was from the days back before I knew Daniel Browning was on the forums, at which point we all had to be technically accurate down to the word or he'd come through and pick apart your posts. Not that he's often (if ever) wrong, but I've given up trying to split hairs because he's got skill in cosmetology as well as optics. I have a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, and I didn't need your technical rendition above.
Except to say, different batteries have different internal resistance, and that influences how much current they can deliver to a particular load. I think we can all agree that a speedlite is a far different load than a flashlight, and therefore presents a dynamic load to the battery string. Those differences inside the batteries can change how much power the batteries can deliver to the flash, and therefore change how fast it recharges, though there's not necessarily a correlation with the battery's charge rating.
We're a Canon/Profoto family: five cameras, sixteen lenses, fifteen Profoto lights, too many modifiers.
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