I am looking into picking up a couple of battery packs for my SB-900's, I would love the nikon packs, but at $199 a pop, I think I will try third party. The only other packs I have seen is Bolt and Cheetah. Any reviews/opinions on these, or suggestions of others?
Any e-bay special should be the same as the Nikon Pack. Get a 8 Battery version as that would be the SD-9 equivalent. Basically all it does is feed power through the cable. Very hard to go wrong unless you Overvolt it.
Unless you're buying a Litium-Ion pack. There isn't much to write about.
The pack above looks like a Glorified AA battery pack. It took 8 1.2V NiMh battery cells and integrated a charger into it. I'm not saying its bad. Just know what you're buying. It might last longer just due to the fact that cheap 3rd party Li-Ion batteries tend to have short life spans because they don't get access to better quality Li-Ion cells. Where NiMh is a bit more forgiving.
I didn't realize there were rechargeable battery packs for this, thanks. And those are still cheaper then the nikon pack. LukeB do you have experience with those packs?
I have these for my SB-900's: http://www.ebay.com/itm/110907007520?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
They do their job fine, yet to have a problem with them. The pouch is also handy and you cannot do wrong with these at that price!
I don't use his products, but Al Jacobs (Black Box) has been around for ages. Definitely not a "startup".
I do have a Cheetah lithium pack that can be used to power Nikon and Canon speedlights, although my use has been limited to their CL-180 flash. The battery pack comes with two power ports, and splitters are available for connecting up to 4 lights. Cheetah claims up to 1800 full-power pops with an SB-900. The lithium pack has worked flawlessly with the CL-180, but at $215 for the pack and $22 for the Nikon power cable, it's not the cheapest solution around. When it comes to SB-910's, I just keep spare AA's in my pocket.
Oh... what I meant was that it didn't look like a site that would be updated too often (like a mom & pop online shop).
So your Cheetah Lithium pack powers up to 4 lights at once, will it get them the 1 sec refresh times if I plugged in 3 SB-900s at a time? That's what I'm aiming for with tri-mount SB-900s. Thinking it would be cheaper to get a Cheetah with 3 cables than to get three separate Pixel packs (~$180) and then get another 24 rechargeable AAs (roughly ~$60). Less to pack too. What do you think?
