Photoclubalpha

I have just got a nex 5n with evf and first impressions are very positive, except for battery life, which is poor. Like you, I did not want to pay £76 for a spare from the Sony store, so ordered a genuine Sony np-fw50 battery from Amazon UK, for £38. It has just arrived and been fully charged, and seems to work fine.

For anyone interested, Jessops are currently selling an HD Essentials Kit for Alpha and NEX. 8GB Memory Card, HDMI Cable and NP-FW50 Battery for £35. They sell the battery separately for £76 (!)

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/pro ... /show.html

A top tip Tom! I now have one on order. Seems a very good deal, especially when you throw in the cable and card. Thanks

Now, can anyone repeat this excellent bit of bargain hunting and find a SEL 55-210 in stock anywhere in the UK?

My reply about a genuine Sony battery from Amazon UK was premature. After working OK for 2 weeks, it now no longer works. When I switch the camera on, the following message appears on the lcd: "Incompatible battery. Use correct battery". After fully recharging, it still does not work. The same message appears. At least Amazon are brilliant about returns. They are sending a courier to collect it from me!

A user on another forum confirmed that these work with 5N.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/250911535688?ss ... 1497.l2649

I did not use them myself, I have another 2 bought from eBay, they worked fine with A55, and now I'm waiting for a NEX7, will see if they work.I remember when I bought them for A55 that it was another discusion, some batteries were a little bit shorter and wider and it looks like the contacts did not work well, especialy the data contact which provides the info about the bettery.People just added some tape on the bottom to push the battery higher.

Other batteries may realy not implement properly all Sony protocol in the chip as I think most third party ones did reverse engineering not licence the protocol from Sony.When I will receive my NEX7 , hopefully in January will test with my older batteries and post here the link to eBay seller (he is active and hopefully did not change the suplier of his batteries).Until then the link above looks the most promising one as we have confirmed reports that they work with 5N.

That's bad luck John - glad Amazon are sorting you out.

Welcome to the forum Adrian and thanks for the link. I'm hoping that my "genuine Sony" one from Jessops works out ok. 3 batteries will do me for the moment, but I may well be up for some new ones in the New Year.

Birma wrote:That's bad luck John - glad Amazon are sorting you out.

Welcome to the forum Adrian and thanks for the link. I'm hoping that my "genuine Sony" one from Jessops works out ok. 3 batteries will do me for the moment, but I may well be up for some new ones in the New Year.

Thanks

What I read, is that the latest firmware update for first gen NEX3/5 adds the same detection for batteries, so older batteries which worked before may not work. If the battery works with NEX5N it should work with older NEX-es also.

What I suspect Sony did is to use some "reserved" bytes in the communication stream.Probably before they were not checked so reverse engineered batteries did not pay attention to them (at least some of them). They did not change the encoding, as older Sony betteries still work.