I recently purchased a Nikon SB-800 from the US it came in a pack with some generic NiMH batteries & a charger for them. These batteries were ok but they didn’t last very long and standard alkaline batteries allowed more shots and also the flash recharge rate was quicker with them. I started looking into other options for rechargeable batteries a friend at work had also done a similar thing so we compared notes and came up with Sanyo Eneloop’s. These are a part of a new breed of battery which is slowly becoming more prevalent on the market today, they are known as ready to use or low drain batteries.

The idea behind these new batteries is to counter one of the downfalls of normal rechargeable batteries; if the traditional rechargeable NiMH batteries are unused they slowly discharge themselves. Meaning if you charge batteries after each use a week later they will be flat – of course this is useless if you want to then use them.

With limited testing so far I used my flash for about 50 shots then about a month later I was able to use the batteries in wireless microphones at church for 2 services totally about 4 hours of use including practise with no charging. I found this is quite remarkable, we use rechargeable NiMH 9V in some other wireless microphones and if used Friday night for 2 hours they are no good within an hour or so of use 36 hours later.

I personally bought them from Dick Smith instore, but there are a couple of other places that have them slightly cheaper online, but I wont link to them because I can’t vouch for their credibility.

Sanyo Eneloop

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