I was shooting with a flash setup borrowed from a friend. 580EX2 with the extra battery pack, all on the new NiZn batteries. I about crapped my pants with how fast they recycled on 1/1 power. At least 2x faster than standard NiMH or alkalis.
I remember seeing a thread here about them, but I'm about to place an order for a butload of them. $20 on Amazon for a 1hour charger and 4 batteries.
Anyone been using them so far? I'm mainly sharing because I know flash recycling can be an issue with critical moments during a reception, and to me, these babies recycled just as fast if not faster than using a $$$$ quantum battery.
The only reason I've avoided them are because of the few stories about them killing the SL's or their quickness to overheat. I'll be very interested in hearing how they work for you.
They die very fast for me when shooting slowly and incredibly incredibly fast when shooting fast such as dancing, almost melted my flash that time too.
I get about 160 shots per set shooting slowly so you get battery pack recycle but nowhere near the capacity.
Nice not to need that dangling wire though.
I use them for the first part of the wedding where a wire is a pain in the neck, I put eneloops and a battery pack back in though for the reception.
And I wouldn't put them in my Nikon with a heat meter (SB900) because it would shut down too soon/often. THAT is a nightmare enough with normal batteries. I keep a spare cool set in my pocket JIC the meter starts rising already.
If you want your flash's to last then don't overheat them, if you don't care them go full tilt. Personally I know that heat kills electronics AND batteries, it's a fact. I don't want either investment to die a premature and possibly irritating death during an event.
I did a recycle test with them for myself at full power, a 580ex with Nizn recycles just a tiny bit faster than a 580II with eneloops. They are slower than eneloops and CP-E4 on both flashes, by a good half second.
It gives a bit of extra speed which is welcome but it isn't a battery pack and it's a technlogy that IMO needs to mature before we can rely on it. The heat is the batteries not the flash itself, the flash never heats up shooting at full tilt with a battery pack from years of shooting them like that.
So far we have faster recycling than eneloops but at the cost of (often significantly) less capacity, batteries that get very hot under usage and do not come with a charger that can be relied on such as our favorite Maha chargers.
I use them but I admit to not being particularly sanguine about it.
Good to know about the capacity, wasn't sure . . . they are crazy fast though and coupled with a battery pack, 1/1 pops is like .25 seconds to recharge . . . scary fast.
So far I've had horrible luck with Nizn batteries. Maybe it's the two Metz 58 flashes I used, but both of my flashes went bad. They don't turn on any more. It's crazy because even when the flash unit is off and any type of battery is in the (alkaline or NiMH) the flashes heat up and the batteries heat up to the point that you can't touch them. However, so far my Canon 430EX has survived the batteries.
By the way, I don't shoot flash like some of you. I think it's wise to allow the flash proper time to recycle, so I know it wasn't because I was shooting to fast.
I've read about these batteries before. What put me off first is that sometime during the thread I remember reading something about the batteries damaging or shortening the lifespan of your flash.
