*GOOD* Sony battery charger for NP-F batteries

O

OldCorpse

Rockin the Boat
I'm having no luck with battery chargers for Sony NP-F style batteries (NP-F 970, 550 etc.). I have a bunch of them (actually, lol, 7 of them, because they came with various LED lights I bought), and they all suck... each and every one of them... the dual charge ones invariably have one of the stations not charge at all etc.. Basically they're awful. So I looked at various chargers on Amazon, and not one has good reviews.

So, I'm in the market for a good charger. Dual station one would be a bonus, but I'll settle for one just as well. I'd prefer not to pay more than about $100. My main concern is: reliable, one that charges fully, and that is not likely to break after 2 days like so many do.

Any ideas? Thanks!
 
The Sony branded "dual charger" is the lowest cost pro manufacture branded charger out there. At only $99 I would buy two rather than spending more on a fancier charger.
 
I have a dual charger from "Beillen", cost me 54 bucks. Beillen is a pretty well known manufacturer here in austria/germany. The batteries are charging in around 3-4 hours...
 
Beware of counterfeit Sony NP-F batteries and chargers. You may have what appears to be a genuine Sony battery but is actually a seriously underpowered fake. There are several videos on YouTube showing the fakes next to the real thing. Only buy from reputable dealers to be safe.
 
Exactly Mitch, in our testing of "Ebay" generic or fake batteries we find that the real charge capacity is often 1/2 to 2/3 of what the label on the battery calls for, and some of them die premature death after very little use. The chargers are often built to deliver very slow charge; like with other things in life you get what you pay for...
 
It looks like I'll have to spend slightly more, about $200. I'm leaning to buying two Sony dual chargers. Upon a bit of research, it appears that the Sony chargers charge consecutively, not simultaneously, so that's a bit of a downer, necessitating buying of two chargers if you want two batteries charged within a reasonable timeframe. My decision is based on it being Sony chargers, hopefully Sony knows how to charge Sony batteries - and hopefully buying genuine Sony chargers from reputable vendors I can avoid fakes. Would I like them to be faster, sure, but I can't justify paying $500 for a charger. I'd rather sink more $ into more batteries and charge ahead of time. The red-pro looks interesting, but with no reps in the US, writing to Switzerland just to even get a price... just no. The Beillen is twice or more the price in the US - for that, I may as well go with Sony. So ectobuilder has it - thanks, ectobuilder. And thank you Mitch Gross and Alex Dolgin - very valid points, as fakes are all over the place, and worse, none of them even when bought at the same time from the same vendor hold the same amount of charge, so in gear that needs two or more batteries that are the of the same profile, you can't use these generics.
 
Beside some original SOny NP-Fs, I have several 3rd party NP-Fs bought from my pro video dealer here in germany.
They are less than half the price and seem to have at least the same capacity than my Sony NP-Fs.

Chargers: To give your batteries a long life and best capacity, they should be charges with 1/10th of their capacity
over 10-12h- That's what batteries need.
You can buy quick chargers if you really need that fast charges, but beware of charging your batteries always this
way.
I have two Sony chargers and they are okay, but nothing special. I know many better chargers for NP-Fs. The RedPro
stuff is much better than the Sony chargers, even if the nice Sony logo is missing...
The Beilen charger is as good as the RedPro one, but misses the extra display, which comes in handy more often than
you think.
 
Thank you, Erik. I might add a Beillen charger too at some point. Basically, I have a bunch of LED lights that need Sony batteries. I have several F&V K4000, two R-300 and a bunch of Chinese LED lights. I don't have to use all of them all of the time, but f.ex. on the F&V K4000, each one takes 2 batteries, and I use 6 of those lights on a shoot, so 12 batteries, which only last about 1 hour, so if I am on location somewhere where I can only charge in a hotel room, I might need a whole bunch of batteries recharged nightly... 12-24 batteries is a whole lot.
 
Erik Wittbusch said:
Beside some original SOny NP-Fs, I have several 3rd party NP-Fs bought from my pro video dealer here in germany.
They are less than half the price and seem to have at least the same capacity than my Sony NP-Fs.

The RedPro stuff is much better than the Sony chargers, even if the nice Sony logo is missing...
The Beilen charger is as good as the RedPro one, but misses the extra display, which comes in handy more often than
you think.
Click to expand...

Erik (or anyone else); can you please tell me where you can buy the RedPro charger.

Thanks
 
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