Choice of Battery: I have a Sony α6000 on order and this morning I decided I should probably get a spare battery for it. I looked on eBay and found the prices to range far and...

pecohen Loc: Central Maine

I have a Sony α6000 on order and this morning I decided I should probably get a spare battery for it. I looked on eBay and found the prices to range far and wide - from around $8 to $50 with quite a few packages of a charger and two to four batteries for around $20. Most were rated at 1500ma/h but some had lower ratings - with the lowest rating being that of the original equipment Sony battery.

This got me thinking. Clearly the camera can operate with only 1060mA/h so that is not really the rating I should care about. What is important to me is how long I can go between charges.

I took a look at Amazon's site; it always has a lot of reviews. One review was particularly interesting in that it compared some alternative (with higher mA/h rating) to the Sony battery and noted that the alternative would discharge quickly when not being used while the Sony battery stayed well charged. I decided to spend the extra money to get a Sony battery - I've used cheap batteries before and unless I charged them right before going out they were apt to be dead.

But in my investigations I found an interesting article http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries. The first table there shows how the number of discharge cycles varies with the percent of discharge in each cycle.

This was something I'd long wondered about; the rule with the old NICAD batteries was to always discharge them completely but I'd never before seen anything like that advice for Lithium batteries. Mostly I care about getting the maximum number of exposures per battery, so what I care about is indicated by the product of the two columns (if I discharge 1/2-way I get half the number of exposures per re-charge). Running those numbers out, it looks like the optimum is found right there - discharging half-way.

In practice, it is hard to judge when the battery is at that half-way point but this does tell me it is a bad idea to wait until my battery is dead before replacing it with a fully charged one.

bclaker Loc: LaconIa, NH

Thanks for the info. I had never heard this before.

Screamin Scott Loc: Marshfield Wi, Baltimore Md, now Dallas Ga

Nikons have a battery meter that shows you how much power is left & other pertinent info.... I have at least one spare for both cameras. Well I have 4 spares for my D300 (all OEM batteries) but with my shooting, have never had any issues with any 3rd party batteries either... Buying OEM doesn't ensure no issues. Sony had a big battery recall a few years back...

pecohen wrote:

I have a Sony α6000 on order and this morning I decided I should probably get a spare battery for it. I looked on eBay and found the prices to range far and wide - from around $8 to $50 with quite a few packages of a charger and two to four batteries for around $20. Most were rated at 1500ma/h but some had lower ratings - with the lowest rating being that of the original equipment Sony battery.

This got me thinking. Clearly the camera can operate with only 1060mA/h so that is not really the rating I should care about. What is important to me is how long I can go between charges.

I took a look at Amazon's site; it always has a lot of reviews. One review was particularly interesting in that it compared some alternative (with higher mA/h rating) to the Sony battery and noted that the alternative would discharge quickly when not being used while the Sony battery stayed well charged. I decided to spend the extra money to get a Sony battery - I've used cheap batteries before and unless I charged them right before going out they were apt to be dead.

But in my investigations I found an interesting article http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries. The first table there shows how the number of discharge cycles varies with the percent of discharge in each cycle.

This was something I'd long wondered about; the rule with the old NICAD batteries was to always discharge them completely but I'd never before seen anything like that advice for Lithium batteries. Mostly I care about getting the maximum number of exposures per battery, so what I care about is indicated by the product of the two columns (if I discharge 1/2-way I get half the number of exposures per re-charge). Running those numbers out, it looks like the optimum is found right there - discharging half-way.

In practice, it is hard to judge when the battery is at that half-way point but this does tell me it is a bad idea to wait until my battery is dead before replacing it with a fully charged one.

I have a Sony α6000 on order and this mor... (show quote)

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Thanks for that. I'm posting a link to a similar article from the same source. I was very careful about charging Nicads, but since I've been using lithium batteries, I just charge them when it's convenient. Aside from a cell phone battery going bad a few years ago, I've never had a lithium fail.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/do_and_dont_battery_table

ralphc4176 Loc: Conyers, GA

I have purchased Watson brand batteries (and sometimes chargers) from B&H as a spare for every camera I own. I've never had a problem with any Watson product.