PL-U95 - Has anybody tried this battery?
 

I realize most people have gone with an alternative solution to power their camera, monitor, 35mm adapter and hmi light, but has anybody tried using the PL-U95 battery?

I'm not ready to justify an external battery pack, so the extended life from this 3rd party battery looks promising.

There's really no information and it seems only the manufacturers of the battery are commenting on webforums about it.

A cursory search of our forum yielded no search results.

I won't bother bumping if nobody has an answer.

Thanks,
Stanley

Not used these - but have had some experience of cheaper Z1 copy batteries being quite unreliable.

Quite keen on this battery though - anyone with experience of these?

http://www.swit-battery.com/swit2006...ductdetail.asp

D-tap power is a very useful addition in my opinion.

Interesting battery. It's got more juice and it's 20mm longer, 130gm heavier and like the Swit includes a D Tap.
Might be good if running the higher power on camera lights.

Couldn't resist so I bought one :)
I wanted more power to run an on camera light without having to go to a brick battery and this battery seemed like a bargain.

Pros: It comes with a D-Tap lead. A short one terminated in the same plug as used for the EX. Just the D-Tap plug alone down here costs around $35 so it's a worthwhile addition.
Assuming the battery lives up to it's claimed capacity it'll run the EX1 and a light for quite a while. Li-Ion batteries have a high internal resistance so the bigger capacity batteries perform better than the smaller ones.
It might make hand holding the EX1 easier, see photo!

Cons: It's BIG and it's heavier. The weight's barely noticeable but the extra length is very noticeable.
The D-Tap connector ends up on the bottom of the battery in the EX1. Not a huge issue however with the plug in it'll be an issue putting the camera down. I think if you were to leave a release plate on the camera then the plug would clear.
Like all 3rd party batteries the camera only provides voltage indication so it's a bit harder to know how much juice you have left.

After taking the photo I realised the lead can be dressed a bit better by laying it into the groove in the battery, ends up much neater than in the photo. Overall I'm quite happy with this battery. The only other way to get this capacity is quite expensive and between it, the battery that came with the camera and a BP-U60 I can shoot all day off batteries.

In addition to 2 BP-U60s, I have 2 of the Swits that power my Ex3 & nanoFlash. Very good setup but you have to plug the cable from the battery into the DC input, even though you can lock the battery into the receptacle. The camera does not recognise the battery, so instead of seeing how long you have till the battery needs changing, you get a voltage display instead.

I am about to receive the Swit batteries I hope it comes with the required cables

It comes with the cable to connect the battery to the camera. The cable snakes into a slot in the top of the battery. You have to unfurl the cable and connect it to the camera. Note that you can pull extra cable out of the battery body. This is not obvious, I was quite reluctant to do this at first thinking I'd pull internal connections apart. Fear not, it is designed to do this.
When charging the battery you must plug the cable into the socket in the battery.
Hope this helps, this might all be covered in instructions that come with the battery...or not.

I've been using this swit 0620090816a on Flickr - Photo Sharing! with the Bebob adaptor. It gives me d-tap, and about five hours of service. It also balances out the handheld shot so they aren't so front heavy. I have 4 of them. Have never used the stock battery that comes with the EX3.

Helps you hold genlock?
 

It seems that having one of these batteries could help you hold your genlock with another device in the field, in my case a Sound Devices 788T. Turning the camera off will force me to reset sync as I understand it, but with one of these batteries already plugged in when I pull off the Sony battery power won't be interrupted. Or not?

Tip

I know this is an older thread but I was wondering if anyone can say how long their PL-U95 are actually lasting in the field? I'm thinking of picking one of these up in a few weeks, but if the performance is only slightly better then the U-60 then I may not buy this behemoth and stick with the U-60 for compact-sake.

Check out this battery over at B&H from Switronix. Claims of Double the life than the Sony U60. I'm really intrigued as the one being discussed here (PL-U95) is rumored to only get around 6 hrs. Having an 8 hr battery would be awesome!

Pl-u95
 

Got me one of 'em big Swits with D-tap for my EX3. Generally, a good buy - if you mostly use it with some onboard-device like a lamp. Otherwise, I prefer one of the original Sony batteries.

Yes it seems to me the Swit battery would be good when you have to power outboard stuff like a Frezzi or a nanoflash and don't want the extra weight (and cost) of the full size Anton Bauer or V-mount battery. For most people even if you are running say a Frezzi off it and your EX camera that should last a shoot if you are turning off your peripherals between takes. Certainly for handheld work it beats an Anton Bauer hanging off unless it is providing balance over the shoulder.

My PL-U95 was showing 75% power remaining after having the camera powered for 4 hours and in record for 3.5 hours of that. It would appear that the PL-U95 is probably the same capacity as the Swit however it is around $100 cheaper.
This battery is quite a bit longer than the Swit which may mean they're using lower density cells and that can mean the battery will have a longer service life. On the downside I must say (again) it is quite a bit longer than the Swit :)

add a nanoFlash ...
 

I wonder what the PL-U95 battery life would be if you were using a nanoFlash unit on the camera?