StackShot and Flash

[Craig Gerard]

Mike,

As indicated earlier; I don't believe your rechargable batteries are fully recharging. Buy some Sanyo Eneloop batteries [$20.00 for a pack of 8] and a good charger.
You want a charger which recharges slowly, not a 7hr fast recharger. The slower the recharge the better. If your batteries get warm when using your current charger.....replace it.

Neither of my Speedlite flashes (320EX and 420EX) has adjustable power, so they are both always on full power.

Mike, I don't have either of those flash units; but you should be able to set them to manual mode and designate the flash duration via the camera menu, under Flash Settings > External Flash. I'll read up on what 'modes' are available directly from each of the speedlights mentioned. Which camera are you using?

Yep, 320EX:
http://speedlights.net/2011/05/03/in-de ... deo-light/ (scroll down the page)


Craig

[DQE]

Confirming others' comments, the review site provided also shows a dramatic difference between Sanyo Eneloops and another brand of alkalines. This is consistent with what I personally found vs Duracell NiMh cells I bought a year or so ago. I finally threw them out since unlike the Eneloops, they don't hold a charge on the shelf very long at all.

I also remember reading somewhere that the better NiMh batteries have lower internal electrical impedance and can thus recharge the flash unit's capacitors more rapidly. Perhaps this would be more important for obtaining the fastest possible recharge rather than the most number of flash cycles from a given charge.

While I'm commenting, my personal fav NiMh charger is the Maha MH-C9000 model, which holds up to 4 cells at once. It has the ability to recondition aging batteries as well as recharge them under a user-selected mA rate. It also permits the user to simply leave the cells in the charger where it will keep the charged as a trickle charger.

I bought my Eneloops and this charger here, and have been satisfied with the quality of their goods as well as their prompt delivery, etc:

http://www.thomasdistributing.com/Maha- ... p_134.html

My experience is that the charger also makes a difference - the inexpensive generic chargers just don't provide the quality recharge as the Maha unit does. While the Maha unit is more expensive, I believe it's a case of getting what you pay for in this instance.

I hope these comments are helpful. More importantly, I hope that you can find a good path to obtaining a usable stack from a single charge, either through software improvements in the Stackshot, adjustments in the flash or camera, and/or from using higher performance batteries.

[Chris S.]

My experience is that the charger also makes a difference - the inexpensive generic chargers just don't provide the quality recharge as the Maha unit does. While the Maha unit is more expensive, I believe it's a case of getting what you pay for in this instance.

I haven't used the Maha units, nor generic ones, but can report that my two Sanyo-brand Eneloop chargers (the Eneloop batteries themselves being Sanyo products) work very well. They can be purchased for under $12 each. They charge slowly, as the Maha's are said to do, and do not heat up the batteries. They aren't as feature-rich as the Maha units, but work well for their basic purpose.

I plan on picking up a few more chargers, as I can burn through a lot of batteries in a hurry.

[DQE]

My experience is that the charger also makes a difference - the inexpensive generic chargers just don't provide the quality recharge as the Maha unit does. While the Maha unit is more expensive, I believe it's a case of getting what you pay for in this instance.

I haven't used the Maha units, nor generic ones, but can report that my two Sanyo-brand Eneloop chargers (the Eneloop batteries themselves being Sanyo products) work very well. They can be purchased for under $12 each. They charge slowly, as the Maha's are said to do, and do not heat up the batteries. They aren't as feature-rich as the Maha units, but work well for their basic purpose.

I plan on picking up a few more chargers, as I can burn through a lot of batteries in a hurry.

Thanks for the info on the much more reasonably priced charger.

I may pick up a spare Maha unit as such things tend to be discontinued without notice. I've really become enthusiastic about its many (but probably not really necessary) features, being something of a gadget-addict. Also, having an extra charger would help when the inevitable time arises and one wishes to charge more than 4 cells.

[Chris S.]

Phil, I thought quite a bit about getting one of those Maha units, or perhaps one of the ones from LaCrosse. I'd be interested in hearing your experiences about how useful the extra features prove in practice. I could see myself having a mixed recharging setup with multiple Sanyo rechargers for inexpensive bulk capacity, and one Maha or LaCrosse unit for the high-end features, if they indeed earn their keep.

The need to recharge more than four batteries at once is inevitable indeed, at least for me. I'm finding my eight-battery capacity inconvenient. Six 4-battery chargers would be about right for me.

Another nice thing about the Sanyo chargers comes to mind: They are pretty small, and therefore convenient for travel.

Cheers,

--Chris

[DQE]

Phil, I thought quite a bit about getting one of those Maha units, or perhaps one of the ones from LaCrosse. I'd be interested in hearing your experiences about how useful the extra features prove in practice. I could see myself having a mixed recharging setup with multiple Sanyo rechargers for inexpensive bulk capacity, and one Maha or LaCrosse unit for the high-end features, if they indeed earn their keep.

The need to recharge more than four batteries at once is inevitable indeed, at least for me. I'm finding my eight-battery capacity inconvenient. Six 4-battery chargers would be about right for me.

Another nice thing about the Sanyo chargers comes to mind: They are pretty small, and therefore convenient for travel.

Cheers,

--Chris

I think you've made some very good points.

After posting, I was rethinking my own charging tactics, and realized I've rarely used most of the fancier features of the Maha unit. Thus, adding some extra Sanyo chargers makes more sense even without considering the much higher price of the Maha charger.

I think the only time I've used the battery reconditioning feature is when my partner was having trouble with a very infrequently used set of Eneloops for an occasionally used LED flashlight. Even then, I'm not really sure it was necessary to use the reconditioning feature, but it seemed like a good way to reassure her that I'd fixed her flashlight.

I personally enjoy the Maha's digital readouts of the recharging cell's voltage and the current being used, but have never taken any actions based on those readings. Every time I put a heavily discharged set of cells in the unit, they reads about 1.35 volts for each cell, and when they are recharged, they all read about 1.49 volts. There doesn't seem to be much difference from cell to cell when used in a 4-cell flash gun. A simple on/off light on the charger would do just as well, although one can guess from the voltage about how close to recharged a given cell is.

Having more chargers would be more helpful to me than having only one fancier charger, I now think.
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About the only time I've had slight concerns about my Eneloop AAs was when I accidentally left my 3-watt LED flashlight on for about an hour. The batteries became almost too hot to hold, although they showed no signs of swelling or anything. They recharged normally and I couldn't immediately detect anything wrong with them. Probably the heat was just a predictable effect of a fairly high current sustained discharge in the enclosed space of the flashlight.

[Chris S.]

Phil, thanks for your sharing your experience with the Maha charger. Much appreciated! Your information will likely save me money.

I think the only time I've used the battery reconditioning feature is when my partner was having trouble with a very infrequently used set of Eneloops for an occasionally used LED flashlight. Even then, I'm not really sure it was necessary to use the reconditioning feature, but it seemed like a good way to reassure her that I'd fixed her flashlight.

Ah, seems to fit into my limited understanding. The old NiCad rechargable batteries had serious memory issues, and a fancy charger had a better chance than a cheap charger of keeping them at peak function. But modern NiMh batteries, such as the Eneloops, seem to have substantially fewer problems with memory and conditioning, so perhaps a fancy charger is not so important, so long as a simple charger is slow enough to avoid heating the battery, and scales down to trickle charge when the battery is full?

I personally enjoy the Maha's digital readouts of the recharging cell's voltage and the current being used, but have never taken any actions based on those readings. Every time I put a heavily discharged set of cells in the unit, they reads about 1.35 volts for each cell, and when they are recharged, they all read about 1.49 volts. There doesn't seem to be much difference from cell to cell when used in a 4-cell flash gun. A simple on/off light on the charger would do just as well, although one can guess from the voltage about how close to recharged a given cell is.

I also love information, which is why I've considered getting one high-end charger. But your feedback lessens thiis craving. It's interesting that your measurements of voltage drop show it to be pretty small for the Eneloops. I'm not surprised, given the even output I've observed. It would be much more interesting to have additional measures beyond voltage--though with my limited understanding of such matters, I'd have to do some homework to understand other measurements, if they were available.

Having more chargers would be more helpful to me than having only one fancier charger, I now think.

I definitely understand this, as I use Eneloops for lots of things (macro photography, "strobist" style portrait photography, headlamps for hiking/climbing, walkie talkie radios, etc). And I like to go into every shoot with a fleet of fully-charged Eneloops. Even if I think I've used only a few percent of the charge of my Eneloops, between shoot, I like to restore every battery to a fulll and predictably charge. So recharging a bunch of Eneloops at once is, to me, a big convenience.

About the only time I've had slight concerns about my Eneloop AAs was when I accidentally left my 3-watt LED flashlight on for about an hour. The batteries became almost too hot to hold, although they showed no signs of swelling or anything. They recharged normally and I couldn't immediately detect anything wrong with them. Probably the heat was just a predictable effect of a fairly high current sustained discharge in the enclosed space of the flashlight.

I have a parallel experience--when I shoot (typically) 400 full-power flashes from my Nikon Speedlights, then pause to change Eneloop batteries, the Eneloops I remove are, as per your experience, almost too hot to touch. I imagine that this compromises the life of the Eneloops, but I haven't yet seen a negative effect. And if the life of the Eneloops is cut by half, 3/4, or even more, they will still be a bargain against alkaline batteries. But I have no data, yet, on how--if at all--the life of Eneloops may be reduced by heating during discharge.

By the way Phil, your description of your partner's headlamp strikes a chord with me. I have two Zebralights, each of which takes a single AA battery. These lights are said to be optimized for Eneloops, and in my experience, Eneloops do shine in them much more brightly, and for a much longer period, than alkaline batteries. Many of my climbs/hikes go into the night, and my norm is "you fall, you die" situations. So it's basic to my plan to have two high-quality headlamps, each containing a topped-off Eneloop battery, along with a spare Eneloop battery for each. A couple of years ago, I hiked across the Grand Canyon by starlight; on this hike, I didnt actually need my headlamps, but I was glad to have my full headlamps/spare-batteries setups in my pack just in case. Eneloops are good enough that I stake my life by them--and as can be appreciated, I don't say this lightly.

Cheers, Phil--and thanks again for sharing your experience--I much appreciate it!

--Chris