Which battery pack would you recommend for the 580

[YanivFeinberg]

Hi All,
I'm interested in buying a battery pack mainly to shorten the recycling charge time of the 580EX and don't care if it powers my 1Dmk2 or not.

I'm not familiar with the battery packs. But from reading pervious threads it's seems like the recommendation is Quantum 2x2 and pocket wizard for the cables (I hope I got it right)?

Any recommendation of what exactly I should get would be appreciated.

Background of the assignment:
I'm going to attend a wedding oversees and going to have with me 1dmk2, 580ex and the 2.8 lenses. It's going to be an evening event so it's going to be relatively dark and not enough light to take a good background so I thought of setting the camera to 800 ISO to compensate. (I always shoot in daylight and never had the need to really use my flash or high ISO).

[Tony_Bonanno]

I actually have found that the new Canon CP-E3 battery pack works great for the 580EX. Its small enough that you can strap it to your bracket. Holds 8 AA NiMH batteries (plus 4 in flash) and cycles as fast as my Quantum Turbo. I'm happy not to lug the Turbo around anymore. Just did a benefit event Friday night (about 350 shots on 1DMKII) over a three hour period. Cycled almost instantly and never a hiccup. I suspect it would go on many more hours, but haven't had a chance to find out. I bought a spare battery magazine and keep it loaded, but haven't had an occasion to use it yet. Whole setup is much cheaper than most of the traditional battery packs. You might want to consider it.

I bought a CP-E3. Using it and a 550EX during basketball season the flash hardly missed a beat. I also have a second battery magazine as a backup but have never had to switch over to it while shooting. When I bought mine I ordered enough Power2000 2500mHh batteries from B&H to fill both magazines, the flash unit and still have four extras so that I could replace all 12 batteries at once per the instructions.

I do have to comment that the design to attach is CP-E3 to a camera is pretty weak. Some of the dividers in the battery packs have broken when replacing batteries but it doesn't seem to affect operation. Fortunately the device comes with an excellent cloth case that can be attached to a tripod or just tossed in your pocket.

I've added a 580EX to my gear. It is much nicer to operate than the 550EX and it seems equally happy to have the CP-E3 attached though I haven't had the opportunity to put it through the continuous use that shooting basketball offers.

And I thought that I left AA batteries behind in the good ol' Nikon CP990 days. . .

[Bob_Harrington]

I like the Underdog "http://www.underdog-battery.com. Small, can screw into the tripod socket, rechargeable, kit has two batteries so you have a charged backup and relatively inexpensive $175.00 plus the cost of the cable. They have worked well for me, and I don't need a bag full of AAs
Bob H.