Sony L-Series NP-F batteries and chargers

S

Samuel Dilworth

Well-known member
I’ve been trying to avoid these things, but it’s becoming unviable because so many products use them, e.g. the Sound Devices MixPre recorders, loads of lights, etc.

I understand there are several sizes corresponding to different internal cell counts. The Sony model names (e.g. NP-F570, NP-F770) relate to capacity in some way.

Many of the genuine Sony models seem to be discontinued, although the large NP-F970 is still widely available. Why has Sony discontinued most sizes? What do you get for the price premium of the NP-F970 over third-party competitors?

What’s the cheapest genuine Sony charger to charge these batteries, including third-party batteries? I don’t need fast charging or USB charging and I dislike cheap chargers that often squeal audibly or die young, in my experience of third-party chargers for other Li-ion batteries.

Thanks!
 
I put Npf-970 batteries into three categories:

1. $160 Overpriced Sony OEMs. Ok for a camera but it gets prohibitively expensive in quantity.
2. $50+ High Quality Generics on B&H.
3. $15 Cheap Generics on Amazon. You can expect occasionally a battery to fail and around 20-30% less capacity. But that's a trade off many people are ok with the saving.

Generic chargers are slow but that's ok with over night charging.
 
Last edited:
Samuel Dilworth said:
I’ve been trying to avoid these things, but it’s becoming unviable because so many products use them, e.g. the Sound Devices MixPre recorders, loads of lights, etc.

I understand there are several sizes corresponding to different internal cell counts. The Sony model names (e.g. NP-F570, NP-F770) relate to capacity in some way.

Many of the genuine Sony models seem to be discontinued, although the large NP-F970 is still widely available. Why has Sony discontinued most sizes? What do you get for the price premium of the NP-F970 over third-party competitors?

What’s the cheapest genuine Sony charger to charge these batteries, including third-party batteries? I don’t need fast charging or USB charging and I dislike cheap chargers that often squeal audibly or die young, in my experience of third-party chargers for other Li-ion batteries.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I use a watson duo charger and like it better than my sony dual charger - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/836481-REG/watson_d_4203_duo_lcd_charger_for.html. I can swap out adapter plates for the rare times I need to charge canon lp-e6 type batteries.

@SMM, thanks for the link to the HW charger. I'm eyeing up that 8 channel charger, it'd be great to load batteries up and go to sleep.

Samuel, back to your post, IDK why sony discontinued their smaller sizes. Maybe the knock offs completely ruined it for them? As for differences, with my smallhd monitor, the sony batteries stay locked in place and can only be removed by pressing the button in. The off brand batteries stay in place well enough but I don't need to push the button, I can just remove them by pulling them out. I'm not sure if the same applies to all products which use these batteries but this says you're also paying for a difference in physical design where the parts that receive the pins might have an extra tiny mechanism. This might be added safety for equipment that's moving quickly, suspended over people/objects etc. but I guess you'd be taking extra steps to secure batteries in those scenarios anyway.

Personally I think watson seems like the sweet spot for value - no sony price tag but supposedly matched/sometimes exceeding battery life performance.

I wouldn't even consider the complete no name batteries but to each their own.
 
Dolgin is what we use at work for the F770 batteries in our light kits, I have two of the 4 way fast chargers and really need two more. Nice chargers so far, third year of owning them. To me worth the extra money to have the fast charge.
 
Which third party batteries are recommended particularly for lights or monitors? I have some smaller RAV power batteries, but am looking for reasonably reliable NP-F57 and NP-F770 third party high quality generics.
 
My experience of third-party batteries for my stills cameras has been universally poor over the years. The capacity specs (often higher than those of the OEM batteries!) are made up, the capacity plummets rapidly with use anyway – often because the batteries lack basic load-balancing circuitry – and the batteries swell early in their life.

Whereas if you look after good batteries from the start – no needless charging above ~80% or deep discharging, storage at around 40–60% between uses, avoiding warm temperatures, etc., they last a surprisingly long time – as long as ten years in some cases. Of course that requires some minimal planning that is beyond some people if they’re even aware of the need, which is why I would never buy a used battery (or a used iPhone for that matter).

There’s a good teardown of Olympus versus third-party batteries here:

https://pen-and-tell.de/2018/08/akku-schlachthaus-blh-1/

Google Translate version:

https://translate.google.com/transl...-and-tell.de/2018/08/akku-schlachthaus-blh-1/

This kind of thing is why I’m hesitant to buy Sony L-Series knock-offs.

Chargers are a bit different, but I see a lot of supposedly genuine Sony chargers on eBay at decent prices. Example: eBay item number 113865755977. Hard to tell which ones would work with the current NP-F970 batteries, though. Sony appears to have made many models over the years. And there are obviously loads of fake chargers on eBay, too. I mean ones branded “Sony” but clearly not.

Is there a way to date Sony batteries from their serial number?
 
Our light kits use Kastar which is the same brand as some batteries I bought for my GH2, mixed luck so far with the Sony type being pretty good and the GH2 generally being junk.
 
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