Best battteries for speedlights

Prize78

Prize78

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Hi all.

Have just purchased a Canon 430exII and a Yongnuo YN-560III and was wondering what the best batteries to go in them would be??

Am so far heading for Sanyo Eneloop rechargeables unless anybody can offer a good alternative?? Cheapo batteries it seems, don't last 5 minutes and the recycle times are just offensive!

Thanks in advance.
 
Thanks for the reply.
I see a lot of talk over 'intelligent chargers' is this a necessity??
 
Prize78 said:
Thanks for the reply.
I see a lot of talk over 'intelligent chargers' is this a necessity??
Click to expand...
Not a necessity, but it'll stretch the life of your batteries.

You really should read some reviews though, you'll see 'Eneloops are best' spouted as if it's gospel, it's not necessarily true.
 
Whether you get the 'always ready' type rechargeables or the traditional type depends on your priorities.

I need my batteries in bulk with spares, and found that the 'charge and leave to discharge over weeks' pattern kills standard rechargeables. It's supposed to be less harmful to the new type so I've made nearly a total switch of about 60 batteries (switch will be complete by Christmas)
 
Prize78 said:
Thanks for the reply.
I see a lot of talk over 'intelligent chargers' is this a necessity??
Click to expand...


Hi, Intelligent chargers are not a necessity but are well worth having. They are very useful in preventing over charging of a cell and should make sure all cells are brought up to the correct amount of charge. They are also a very good way of seeing if one or more cells are begining to fail by indicating the amount of charge they need compared to others to bring them up to full charge.

As for batteries I have never used Eneloops but have seen good reports about them. I use genuine Duracell Rechargables and have always found them to be very good.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for the replies. I have a actually got a good deal on energizer rechargeables. They're 2000mah and have got an intelligent charger for them too. Seemed to tick the boxes for my requirements.
 
I use tenergy. You can basically just walk around with the flash on for like 6 hours blasting away.
 
I have put an order in for some of the Vapextech mentioned in the review linked above. Any others I should look out for??
 
7 day shop surprisingly good. I did 700 shots with flash on saturday on one set and they were still going. This included some ocf work and bouncing off a very high ceiling
 
Eneloop are excellent, and I don't think you'll go wrong with them, but they were one of the first low discharge brands and they've achieved a sort of cult status. There are other alternatives now.
 
Ansmann.

I use a set of 2850s in each flash gun. These are designed specifically for flashguns and are NOT low discharge (I charge them before I go out, just like I do with my camera batteries). As backup I have a set of 2500 MaxE batteries for each head. These are Ansmann's low discharge version so I don't charge them before every job but they are always charged. TBH I almost never need them.

Bear in mind that the last job I did with flash, I shot 443 pictures using 3 flashguns on anywhere between half and quarter power over the course of an afternoon and then used 2 of the flashguns for an evening job where I shot about 400 pics with fill flash. Didn't need the MaxEs at all.
 
I have the 2450 Duracells and they have been very good, also got the 2500 Vapextech Instant and they seem ok apart from the odd duff cell.

Just got some Contour Energy from Amazon for £5.99 and first impressions are they are very similar to Eneloops. All 4 tested within 40Mah of each other and around 1980Mah, that is without a break in cycle.

A good charger will help you understand what is going on with you batteries. But you need time to test and refresh so get 2 if you use lots of batteries.

Choccy...
 
I personally find the GP Recyco batteries are excellent.
 
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