battery charger

[molestrangler]

How the hell can Nikon justify £200 for a car charger for their EL-EN3 battery, does this automatically mean that the £20 chargers on the internet are of no use and/or dangerous ?

If this has been brought up before, sorry, but I'm new to this photography thing.

[crmcatee]

£20 invertor and use your existing charger ?

[molestrangler]

excellent idea, thanks

[CVP]

crmcatee said:

£20 invertor and use your existing charger ?

This is exactly what we did for a trip on an overland truck. Worked just brilliantly.

For cars it's obvious to get the 12V version but some trucks are 24V so if anyone is thinking of doing this for an overland type journey do check with your operator first so you getthe right invertor.

Chris

[crmcatee]

I've just done that for the 110 Landy in preperation for it's journey to Iceland.

12V 300W invertor to supply 240V to the rear for Laptop, phone chargers and an external hard drive. They can run day and night as I've put in a split charge with a couple of Optima batteries.

[CVP]

Have fun in Iceland, it's one of the most amazing places I've been to.

[miniman]

Aside of the neat idea to use an inverter, the question remains - how the hell can Nikon justify £200 for a car charger?! Absolutely outrageous particularly when you can buy a whole brand new D40 for £250! I suspect the reality is that the generic £20 chargers work just as well as the cheapo batteries - i.e. perfectly.

[Simpo Two]

miniman said:

Aside of the neat idea to use an inverter, the question remains - how the hell can Nikon justify £200 for a car charger?! Absolutely outrageous particularly when you can buy a whole brand new D40 for £250! I suspect the reality is that the generic £20 chargers work just as well as the cheapo batteries - i.e. perfectly.

Agreed. Partly it's to have 'Nikon' on the front but there are also many people worried that something from China will void their warranty, blow up their D3 etc. There are times when it pays to stay with the brand, at others not IMHO.

[miniman]

CVP said:

Have fun in Iceland, it's one of the most amazing places I've been to.

Me too, we once had a brilliant game of "see how many ice lollies we can eat before the Police arrive" in there

[CVP]

miniman said:

Aside of the neat idea to use an inverter, the question remains - how the hell can Nikon justify £200 for a car charger?! Absolutely outrageous particularly when you can buy a whole brand new D40 for £250! I suspect the reality is that the generic £20 chargers work just as well as the cheapo batteries - i.e. perfectly.

Agreed. I'm with Simpo, there cannot be any real justification of this, it definitely does not contain that amount of electronics that support that price and give Nikon a fair profit. It's just like they charge USD 75 for a constant power supply for the D2/3 so you can get to the sensor cleaning mode when the battery is less than about 85% full. Unforgiveable on the base cost of those cameras. by all means put the base cost up a bit in the first place and just include the thing in the box, don't make every single thing an accessory that is extra! Not sure of the situation for the other brands but I guess if they all do it then whatever system you use you get the same treatment.

A perfect example for Nikon is extension tubes. They have resolutely not done any development of their own tubes since about 1990 so the official ones do not support AF or matrix metering but should you be so bold as to go and use the Kenko set (much cheaper and 100% functionality retained) then there are all kinds of warnings about damage etc through using non OEM lenses / adaptors all over the instruction book.

Chris