Comments on: Designing a Better External Battery Pack

By: Patrick Hall Admin

Patrick Hall Admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:38:13 +0000

I know there is a lot of money to be made with this product. I can’t imagine why any photographer who uses off camera flash would need the SD-8a at all but event photographers that bounce flash need this product because you fire off photos much quicker when taking candid style shots.

I’ll be happy when I cross paths with a designer who can help me market this idea but until then I’ll just throw it out here for anyone to bite on. The reality is I’d rather have this product and make no money directly than to not have this product at all because I’m trying to figure out how to make it in secrecy.

By: Tauno

Tauno — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:21:26 +0000

Yes Patrick, there is a valid point in your story. I do not want to imagine a guy with multiple cameras and SD-8a’s attached to every one of them. Worse than star wars. I guess SD-8a was designed a single camera usage in mind. I use speedlights mainly off camera so it is not a issue for what I have given enough thought.
I hope there is guy who understands your issue. It should be a engineer/photographer which is hard to find :p
Although you can always design one yourself :)

By: Patrick Hall Admin

Patrick Hall Admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:14:30 +0000

Tauno, thanks for the suggestions. While I think every product will have its benefits and drawbacks here is why I think this idea is better than the current idea:

1) If you use multiple cameras at events like I do (usually 3-4 DSLRs), then having a cord connected to your flash on one camera makes it really difficult to move to another camera quickly. I’m trying to get rid of that cord; I also do not like battery packs in my pants

2) As for changing the battery in the camera, I agree with you that it is a pain to change out the internal battery because you have to remove the grip to get to it. HOWEVER, again, when using 4 cameras throughout the day (or even say two), the battery life in the D300 cameras is so good that you can go for 6 hours without having to change a camera battery (pending you aren’t shooting a lot of video or using VR lenses). My D200 camera was horrible with battery power and I needed at least 2 batteries per wedding. With my D300(s), I usually go all day without changing any batteries in my cameras and most of the time my reserve battery is still completely full and unused.

3) Even if I did have to change the internal battery, I know exactly when my camera is about to die but I do not always know when my flash batteries are not going to be able to keep up with say a fast burst of shooting. I would rather know I have to take 2 mins out and change the camera battery once than to not know when my flash is almost dead and not able to recycle. I would make the argument that changing out the SB800/900 batteries or the SD-8a pack is just as time consuming as taking the grip off and changing the internal battery.

The main reason I love my proposed idea is that your camera will look and operate EXACTLY as it did before. Do you need a vertical grip? Of course; but most people concerned with this problem are pros anyway and I assume they already have an MB-D10 which is now being used on all Nikon pro series cameras. If this tray cost $5 to make and someone could sell it for $50, I would buy it and I think there is a lot of money to be made with this alternative to the SD-8a pack. Both take about 2 mins.

Do you agree with at least a few of my points? The SD-8a is so annoying for me to use that I am currently preferring to go without it at all….that is business lost for someone :)

By: Tauno

Tauno — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:37:06 +0000

Yes I have seen lot of guys using the Nikon SD-8a with no issues and they are happy with it. You got nice idea but I see it has one flaw. First it would be a solution only for those cameras with additional battery grips.
Second, if you need to change the main battery of your camera, you are in trouble. You will spend much more time doing that than changing the casual flash batteries to fresh ones.
I am sure one will drain the cameras which have no specialized grips with a large event.

By: Jeff Hubis

Jeff Hubis — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:49:41 +0000

I used to love the SB800s 5th battery side mounted “Snap On” It got me through alot of events. The only thing that sucks about that is packs of batteries usually come in four. Hey Nikon… fit the EN-EL3e into your flashes already.

By: Daniel Eppelsheimer

Daniel Eppelsheimer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:18:29 +0000

The idea is great. What is the idea?

NO CABLES

however

HEAT from the new flash batteries
will cook your camera

By: Lee

Lee — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:18:17 +0000

It actually wouldn’t even be that complicated. The grip works without any battery inside it as long as there is still a battery in the camera body. This means that all you have to do is have a small cord running on the outside of the camera that goes from the AA batteries in the grip to the flash. We tried to build this ourself but we learned that the front input on Nikon flashes is high-voltage, meaning that you would need a small capacitor in the grip with the batteries to up the voltage, once we learned this we realized we were over our heads.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:12:34 +0000

i thought about this a while back but to start to see what could be done you would have to take the grip apart to dissable the connections to the cam body, but i’m not prepaired to hack open £250 worth of gear, but it is a great idea, i might see what the cheapest copy on flebay is and have a look at that

By: Lee

Lee — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:24:56 +0000

I agree, I use the vertical grip 50% of the time and I don’t like having something blocking it.

By: patrick

patrick — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:51:20 +0000

Thanks for pointing that out Roman..very true. However, have you ever tried to use your camera with the grip and the SD-8A? It’s very bulky and the unit I have overhangs the grip on several sides. Not practical at all for event shooting. It also prevents your camera from being used on a tripod now that the pack is using the grip’s 1/4″ plug.

What do you guys think? Maybe I’m crazy on this one