Every Camera Owner out there recognize the need to have spare batteries for their systems. Be it an amateur or a professional, batteries determines your “camera life” when you are out on a holiday or on an assignment. So in short (and bluntly), if you run out on a flat battery, that’s the end. So having some spare batteries in your bag for your camera is like a compulsory insurance in every possible situation.

As a professional photographer, I am what the locals considered as “Kiasu” – (Afraid on losing out / Cannot Lose/ Scare lose – Wiki) type of photographer. I carry spares batteries – lots of them, on both commercial work & leisure shoots. Yes, I have at least 4 batteries per camera when I am on assignments and at least 16 AA Batteries per Flash and I usually carries 2 cameras & 2 flashes. So expectedly, there are more gears like a 3rd Camera, more lenses & more batteries on standby in my car boot just in case. From personal experience, I have come to terms that All  photography accidents happened when you least expect them to happened. 🙂 Face it. That’s a fact.

Recently, a supplier introduced me to a new brand of replacement batteries for my cameras. Before I started on a battery buying spree for my 1D Mk IV, 5D MkII, 40D & 500D, I decided to just buy a replacement BP-511A to test out the charge holding power, how many shots it will last me before it is spent and how stable it is on my EOS 40D.

*Pardon my photos on this articles as I shot the below with just an iPhone IV. :)~

Hercules’s replacement batteries comes in a “hard back” plastic packing as above. While the original batteries from proprietory brands usually comes in a nice little box, the hard back packaging looks more purposeful.

On a side by side comparison, the Hercules unit has a lighter shade of gray as compared to the Canon’s original unit. But batteries are rated by their charge and not by their cosmetic right? 🙂

OK, the Hercules design is made exactly 1:1 so that it fits into the battery compartment nicely just like the Canon’s original unit. 🙂

The Hercules unit has a charge rating of 1800mAH while the Canon’s original unit has a lower charge rating of 1390mAH both based 7.4V and both are Lithium-Ion batteries. I was told by fellow professional photographers that charge rating stated on 3rd party batteries cannot be trusted, so I had a Hercules Fully Charged and went on a on few shoots clocking the shutter counts and done the same for the Canon’s unit.

The result?

Hecules’s BP-511A clocked a total of 734 shots while the Canon unit only managed 700 shots before the camera refuse to respond to my CPR. Lolz. Though the Hercules outperformed the Canon’s unit by a mere 34 shots, I believed as I continue to use the Hercules, it will eventually hit a peak of about 780 shots as Lithium-Ion is known to increase it’s performance by per charge until it reaches it peak performance. The Canon unit that I used for the test was a 1 year old unit, so the 700 shots clocked is already the peak output in theory.

With better performance and only priced to 1/3 of the original unit’s asking price, the Hercules is great for photographers who demand excellent performance from their batteries without having to break their bank.  Especially for a battery freak like me, I wouldn’t mind buying a few more to stock up and charge up before the next commercial job or a leisure shoot. And I should be buying at least 2 Hercules for each camera I currently own. 

Now, that is my review through personal usage and testing.

Try it for yourself and decide. After all, it cost only 1/3 of the original price.

🙂

For those interested, you may wish to enquire further at http://www.sgcamerastore.com/.

That’s where I bought my Hercules Batteries.