What rechargable batteries do you have that work the best for the 580EX flash?   I do not have a battery pack yet, but want to know if a certain brand of amp is better than others.

Hmmm, I'm loaded with batteries from Costco.
Duracell, they last considerably long than rechar. batteries, plus I just throw out used ones. No way that I can end up with not charged batteries. It's not battery pack, I wish.

0.02$

Tomas

tommas4:

Hmmm, I'm loaded with batteries from Costco.
Duracell, they last considerably long than rechar. batteries, plus I just throw out used ones. No way that I can end up with not charged batteries. It's not battery pack, I wish.

0.02$

Tomas

What is your recycle time with Duracell's on the 580?  I tried some cheaper batteries and they were slow.

buy several sets of the highest mA rated ones you can find, and a charger specifically for NiMH. Keep the sets together: use them, charge them, and toss them as a set.

And get a set of good Alkaline (Duracell, etc) and keep those handy. They don't self-discharge like the NiMH and may come in handy in an emergency. But for me they are a bit expensive just to use all the time. (plus I had a bunch from my old digital....)

The best rechargeable AA batteries I've used are Monster.  I have the same set that I bought with my first digital P&S four years ago and they're still going strong...

I use Duracell "Rechargable Accu" batteries.  They are NiMH and have 2050mAh.  They work great so far in my 580EX.

Here is a great article on batteries...

http://www.steves-digicams.com/nimh_batteries.html 

There is a great site with tons of batteries and if you call customer service you might even speak with one of the owners.  www.thomas-distributing.com . Very helpful.

stephie

The recycle time interested myself, so I did a quick shootout.

30D on high burst rate 5frames/second
70-200mmf2.8
580EX, ettl, batteries mentioned above, with about 50 shots already fired on them, 45 degree angle up.

I pointed to paiting on the wall, and it's already dark here, only my small table lamp is on in the room.
In raw the camera is able to buffer 11 shots, so I shot 11, all at 1/125 sec f2.8
Flash fired 10 out of 11 times, picture #10 was dark without flash.

Same setup as above, switched to jpeg and fired 20 shots in a burst. My dog went nuts on me at that point
Flash fired 14 out of 20 times, pictures without flash were 11,12,14,16,17,19

If this counts as test of recycle time, then I'm happy with the results.

Tomas

That helps. Thanks

I don't use rechargeables. They start out at 1.25v instead of an alkaline's 1.5v. For the events I shoot, I can't be changing batteries all the time regardless of cost. I use alkaline AAs in my 550's and have the best thing ever invented for camera flash - a shoulder/belt battery pack. Canon makes several, I use the one with C-cell batteries. Never change batteries (well, almost never) all night at a wedding of 1,000 photos. Well worth the $150 investment for the belt pack.