Batteries

When you shoot a wedding, how many flash guns do you normal carry on you. How many AA battery changes do you go through? How do you charge them?

I was thinking most people would have a bank of chargers for charging up to 16 batteries at a time.

I carry 4 speedlites. 3 on bodies, one on standby. I bring 7 sets of AA batteries. Typcially, I never replace them during a wedding, or I barely make it through the night. The last wedding I barely made it through. The formals were in a dark church and I was using three speedlites, two blasting at full power at least 150 times in a row. Then the reception had darkish painted walls and high ceilings... I'm surprised my flashes survived that! hahaha.

I have three chargers I use. Two SUPER advanced Maha C9000 chargers which are AWESOME and everyone should have one, and one small tiny 4xAA portable which goes with me to each wedding just in case.

I usually shoot with one flash, though I'm planning to add at least one more to that. I really only use it for some fill during the day, and then more during the reception, so I don't use a lot of power. I have three sets of rechargables on me all the time, one set in the flash, one set in case those run out (which rarely happens) and the other set usually gets lent out to the bridesmaid who's camera dies ten minutes after she puts new batteries in (stupid people and their alkalines)

I've got 3 speedlights - 420, 430 and 580 (the latter two arriving soon).

I did a very dark wedding and went through 4 sets of batteries in my 420EX. Every shot needed a lot of flash power. Next time I could probably halve the batteries I need by tweaking my settings some.

I have a nifty little 10-minute charger that takes about 20 minutes to charge and recondition a set of 4 batteries.

Other than that I am currently looking at this charger:
http://www.nimhbattery​.com …c801d-battery-charger.htm
and this charger
http://www.nimhbattery​.com …c801d-battery-charger.htm

C9000! seriously! You have 100% control of everything. 10 min charging is killer on batteries. I would never charge faster than 1 hour.

I haven't seen any decrease in my batteries. In fact my 10 minute charger seems to be getting my batteries to work better. Before, they died very quickly with my old cheapo Walmart charger.

I think i might well get one of the MaHa 8-cell chargers. If I find I need more then I might get a second at some point.

Lloyd's a flash user, I wouldn't describe myself as one. We take 2 flashguns (another on the way), and have never exhausted 2 sets each.

BUT; I only use flash outdoors as a last resort, so most of my flash shooting is during the evening, and then it's balanced down so as to not overpower the ambient.

short answer: No one else knows how much you use flash, Lloyd and I are probably at extreme ends of flash usage.

Generally, I prefer not to use flash. The wedding a few months ago was the first time I have had to use flash extensively. I had to use it in every shot as it was so dark in there that it was hard to move without stumbling. Definitely a faster recycling flash would have been useful as would a huge battery.

Two speedlites, I take one set in each camera, 8 AA cells in a battery pack, and probably 16 spares (they just live in my bag). Because of the battery pack I rarely if ever have to change the batteries in the flash.

tim wrote in post #4161222
Two speedlites, I take one set in each camera, 8 AA cells in a battery pack, and probably 16 spares (they just live in my bag). Because of the battery pack I rarely if ever have to change the batteries in the flash.

Are you talking about the Canon battery pack?

3 speedlights, each with a set of NiMH's in them and a backup set for each, plus a load of alkaline AA's in the bag just in case.

Never got through them all so far (touches wood)

rhys wrote in post #4161311
Are you talking about the Canon battery pack?

Yes.

Last wedding/reception I shot was indoors in the evening. In the roughly 6 hours of the event I think for the 580EX flash I used 2 sets (8 batteries) of rechargable NiMh's. Spare AA set in my pocket along with spare battery for the camera. I carried a 420EX in the bag as backup loaded with batteries as well and had 8 new alkalines in the bag just in case. At about halfway through the event I swapped out the batteries in the 580 because I had a spare moment to do so, not because they were weakening, just making the swap in a leisure moment, rather than in the middle of something. I tried to bounce flash for as much as I could, which will use a bit more juice to do so.
When I have something scheduled like this I'll start charging batteries a few days before. I've tried to put identification and dates on the batteries so they stay in groups when charging and using.
Trying to recall some of your wedding images, did you tend to stop down your aperature considerably to get more DOF which may tend to eat up batteries faster? Also would affect your recycle times as well.

Yes. I tried to do the whole wedding at 100ISO, f8. I was trying to squeeze the best IQ out of the system. In the end it turned out that I had to bump the images in DPP up by 2 stops which probably increased the noise well over what I'd have had shooting at 400ISO. Having said that, the B&G seemed happy with the results. OTOH they couldn't be displeased because I did the wedding free (for experience and for any usable photos for my portfolio).