Another external battery to consider

As an alternative to the Quantum Turbo, Dyna-Lite Jackrabbit and Digital Camera

battery:

 

http://www.aljacobs.com/THE%20BLACK%20BOX.htm

 

He has a lot of good information in the introduction as to whys, hows and ins

and outs of batteries and SB800 /58O EX Ii and similar flash units.

I used this for my Canon flashes.. really well built, solid feel and lasted all day long!

He's also one hell of a writer: http://www.aljacobs.com/Cancer.htm

Perhaps this could be solution for SB-600 ? since SB-600 does not have any connector for external battery power.

 

SB-800 has the High Voltage battery connector and is better suitable for use with potent external batteries packs that include the low-to-high voltage converter like from Quantum or Nikon SD-7 or SD-8A.

Frank while all of what you write is true, it leaves me wondering if you read Al Jacob's introduction and the section about the pros and cons of different battery types.

Ellis, I must admit I did not read through. Started reading, and realized that was a self-promoted advertizing by the vendor who wants to sell it.

 

The battery is good and is better than none at all, or better than just the internal battery alone, but in no way it is a match to perhaps any hight level volage external battery, if you do not compare max number of total flashes you can get from it.

 

Applying this much stronger low voltage battery to SB800 would more likely over heat the SB-800 flash much sooner than the use of external high voltage battery instead. SB800 is not that much heavy duty flash, and needs a lot of cooling breaks as stated in the manual.

 

When you apply external high voltage battery, the internal SB-800 low-to-high voltage converter does not operate, and leaves off generation of a lot of heat in the SB-800. The SB-800 internal electronics runs much cooler that way. Even though the major source of heat is the xenon flash tube, less heat from electronics helps to shoot longer before taking breaks to cool down the flash.

 

Perhaps I would not care if Jacobs battery provide power for 2000 flashes, if I cannot shoot fast, and have to take frequent breaks for flash cooling.

 

So what is good of knowing that the battery can provide 2000 flashes, while I have to stop fast shooting after e.g. 40 shots (SB800 Manual, page 51), and cool down. With external high voltage battery, this number of flashes extends perhaps as much as 50%.

 

If I shoot fast, I know that the high voltage Nikon battery will not last more than a perhaps a 300 flashes (Nikon models), but I do not care about flashes beyond 300+. Quantum will last perhaps as long as Jacobs, but is too expensive.

 

Why would you care about flashes 300 through 2000 if your flash requires frequet periods of cooling. Whould it be more desirable to shoot longer in a single sequence before need to cool down?

 

For SB-600 Jacobs battery is perhaps the only choice.

 

For SB-800 you have a choice to use a better solution. Depending on shooting rate need, high voltage external batteries are more apropriate than Jacobs batteries, unless you shoot at slower rate and want to utilize full up to 2000 flashes.