New photographers often ask “what are the are the most important accessories I need to buy” – filters, cleaning kits, memory cards? After years of shooting landscape and nightscape photography my answer remains unchanged. You can never have enough memory cards or batteries. There is nothing worse than finding yourself in spectacular lighting conditions only to realize your camera is out of battery. How many times has your camera gotten mistakenly switched on while hiking in your backpack? Yup arriving with a bricked camera and no extra battery = total buzzkill.
NiteCores new UFZ100 Batteries for Sony Alpha Mirrorless Cameras
Luckily, extra batteries are minimal expense that will always serve you. As people get into more advanced techniques like time-lapses or doing long-exposure photography, extra batteries become an ever more important part of the everyday photography kit.
So the next question is do I pay more and buy “Sony” branded batteries or can I get away with third party ones? Until recently I was a zealot for brand batteries as they are tried and true, meaning they last longer allowing for a greater number of shutter actuations. Despite my commitment to Sony branded batteries there have long been a couple sticking points that have always bugged me.
First, low end Sony cameras Like the A7iii and A7iv don’t come with a charger. That means if you don’t want to drop money on an external charger, you are limited to tethering your camera to USB C. Pretty inconvenient. Second, if you own multiple batteries, it can be tough to keep track of which ones are charged and which are dead. Checking batteries requires inserting them in your camera and checking the charge status. Annoying.
These batteries allow you to check charge on the fly
I recently have had the chance to test out some new batteries on the marketplace that Sony Alpha user should definitely check out. Nitecore as a brand has been around for a long time and I have used their flashlights religiously for years. When I saw they were entering the photography space I was immediate intrigued. The Nitecore UFZ100 batteries are compatible with all models that take the newer NP-FZ100 batteries. That includes all the Sony Alpha full frame cameras like the A1, A7R, A9 and A7s.
This 2250mAh battery is bringing to cool tech to Sony alpha users that solve my most of my battery woes. The Nitecore UFZ100 batteries can charge directly with a USB C cable which means you can charge them stand alone allowing you to have your camera to keep shooting or charge them on the go. Nitecore has also integrated some smart tech into the batteries that allow to check the charge straight on the back of the battery. By simply pushing a button a small colored LED indicates the charge (green > 50%, blue < 50% and red <10%). In my opinion these two features are game changers for improving work-flow and travel landscape photography.
Direct USB C charging- good bye charger
Ok, Ok, new features are cool but how do they perform. Most users won’t care about new features if the batteries can’t match the Sony NP-FZ100 which has incredible battery life. In my informal tests these batteries performed surprisingly well for a third-party battery yielding about 70 to 90% of the life of an NP-FZ100. More formal timelapse tests going to head-to-head, the Sony NP-FZ100 yielded 7217 shutter actuations and the UFZ100 7212 shutter actuations. Granted I would never expect quite that kind of performance in the field given temperature fluctuations and battery life spent reviewing photos.
All in all Nitecore batteries can go toe to toe with the Sony batteries. When you add in the new feature upgrades and functionality these new Nitecore batteries are a winner in my mind. Check out these and other new photography accessories that Nite core is bring on line at:
https://photo.nitecore.com