is the best place to buy accus from. His accus are measured and selected (paired) by hand. He also sells the chargers.
His website is all German but I'm sure he'll answer in English if you write him. Come back to me if you need help.
If you're shooting bursts a lot then I'd also get the Canon CP-E3 to companion your 580 with. It takes 8 additional AAs, is lighweight compared to other external battery packs and speeds up flash recycle times dramatically.
Rechargable NiMH are the way to go for your in-flash batteries. Eventually you'll want to consider a suplemental battery. I'm extremely please with my Quantum Turbo. Since it puts out 340V, it recharges the flash capacitors rapidly to ready the flash for additional shots.
A couple more questions...with the Quantum Turbo, you can fire at 8 FPS with flash? ...usually, how many shots you can take with a fully charged Quantum?
The short answer is no, you can't get anything close to 8fps continuous. Even if you could, your flash would be a smoldering pile of plastic in short order.
The long answer is, it depends. The camera will slow your frame rate down automatically, so about 5 fps is all you'll get with the flash on. How often the flash will fire is a function of how well your battery is charged and the output settings on the flash. At full flash output you'll only get about one or two flashes per second. At minimal fill settings (say, -2 FEC), you can get as many as 3 or 4 flashes per second.
A fully charged quantum in good condition will give you many hundreds of flashes in a day. I've never counted, but rarely exhaust a full battery in one day.
I too recommend the NiMH batteries. A set of 2500 mah will last a long time. For the external battery source to get faster recycling I'd suggest the Canon CPE3 (I think that's the number) which is the new version of the old Transistor Pack E I use. This battery pack is small and light, uses 8 AA NiMH batteries (so one charger will do all your flash batteries) and works really well. Kwan has been using this for some time and I've been using the older (bigger and heavier) version for years.
I mail order my batteries from www.thomasdistributing.com in the USA because they're very much less expensive than in Canada (and Europe from what Jasper Doest tells me).
Discussion
6 repliesThe flash takes 4AA batteries...what do you recommend, alkaline, lithium, or rechargeable Ni-MH? or an external power supply?
I'll use it mainly with 600 f/4 + 1.4x TC.
Thanks four your help, every suggestion is very appreciated
http://www.accu-select.de/
is the best place to buy accus from. His accus are measured and selected (paired) by hand. He also sells the chargers.
His website is all German but I'm sure he'll answer in English if you write him. Come back to me if you need help.
If you're shooting bursts a lot then I'd also get the Canon CP-E3 to companion your 580 with. It takes 8 additional AAs, is lighweight compared to other external battery packs and speeds up flash recycle times dramatically.
Best,
Sven
A couple more questions...with the Quantum Turbo, you can fire at 8 FPS with flash? ...usually, how many shots you can take with a fully charged Quantum?
Thanks again
The long answer is, it depends. The camera will slow your frame rate down automatically, so about 5 fps is all you'll get with the flash on. How often the flash will fire is a function of how well your battery is charged and the output settings on the flash. At full flash output you'll only get about one or two flashes per second. At minimal fill settings (say, -2 FEC), you can get as many as 3 or 4 flashes per second.
A fully charged quantum in good condition will give you many hundreds of flashes in a day. I've never counted, but rarely exhaust a full battery in one day.
I too recommend the NiMH batteries. A set of 2500 mah will last a long time. For the external battery source to get faster recycling I'd suggest the Canon CPE3 (I think that's the number) which is the new version of the old Transistor Pack E I use. This battery pack is small and light, uses 8 AA NiMH batteries (so one charger will do all your flash batteries) and works really well. Kwan has been using this for some time and I've been using the older (bigger and heavier) version for years.
I mail order my batteries from www.thomasdistributing.com in the USA because they're very much less expensive than in Canada (and Europe from what Jasper Doest tells me).
Hope this helps.