Ultralast UL-LPE5 EOS Rebel XSi Battery
A comparison of the Ultralast EOS Rebel XSi battery against the Canon battery to see if it really is worth paying the extra money for the original version.
Ease of Use, Performance: 23/25
Look & Feel: 20/25
Features 20/25
How much I enjoy 22/25
Total: 85/100
Batteries are probably the most controversial and highly debated topic in digital cameras, not the brand of camera or what accessories you need but should you pay the full price of the camera manufacturer’s battery. A battery is the lifeline of a camera and if your goes dead on you in the thick of shooting all the gadgets on that camera are worthless.
A good battery that can take a vast amount of shots whether you’re using all sorts of attachments, live viewing your shot or using the built in flash. But what about all those other batteries from companies that praise their batteries being just as good as Canon, Nikon or Olympus?
I am going to compare the Canon Rebel XSi battery pack LP-E5 against the North American Battery Pack Ultralast UL-LPE5 and see which is better. I received both batteries brand new and charged then drained them three times to ensure they were fully charged and ready for use.
I bring you a contact to contact match using two methods of testing that should appease anyone using a good digital camera like the Canon EOS Rebel XSi. I am going to compare the batteries from Canon and North American Battery Company with both on camera use and a little test that I devised to save my camera from too much wear and tear.
I started this review with the idea that I would simply test the batteries in my camera by connecting the camera to my computer and using the Canon EOS Utility to take a picture every few seconds. The EOS program can count how many pictures it could takes till the battery died so I could get a good comparison in real world use with the batteries and camera.
Bad idea, the flash gets quite warm and now I have a little heat damage to the plastic that covers the flash, no problem, I will just replace that when I get around to it. But I still wanted to run some other kind of comparison as well as the ones I did get inside the camera to see if the batteries really did perform as well.
I did some calculations and some searching on the internet and found some ideas, please bear with me as I go through some boring technical stuff. A digital camera uses power in two main ways, I know I am simplifying this way down but for ease of understanding it works out like this.
A digital camera has some power use when it is not taking a picture; the screen, live view if on, and sensor image are all on and using power. I found several power use examples for cameras and found that many cameras use anywhere from 50 to 250 milliamps for these smaller residual power drains.
When the shutter is actually releasing or in the case of digital cameras the mirror is flipping up and down or the flash is going off the camera uses much more power. I found that DSLR cameras today use about 500 milliamps to just over one amp when actually taking a picture and recharging the flash portion of the camera.
So I came up with a nice little contraption that would drain the battery without using my camera and adding all that wear and tear to it with this little bit of knowledge. I created a small circuit using a relay that would have a clock and some resistors draining the battery in one position for my small load at 50 milliamps or .05 amps.
For the larger power drain I have the normally open circuit of the relay close and add a smaller resistance to the camera battery to give a boost to the power drain of 1121 milliamps or 1.121 amps. When the clock is running about 5 seconds for the portion of the relay that is closed for that circuit the camera drains a little and then the relay opens for the clock with the small load and closes for the larger load for a second.
This small load for five seconds and large load for a second simulates the use of a camera taking a picture every five seconds and does a good job of draining the battery under conditions similar to regular use of a camera. I also did test the camera batteries using the camera and saw results that match the results I get from testing with my load tester.
My results for the Ultralast battery was not as good as the Canon battery that comes with the EOS Rebel XSi but good enough for use by any photographer, even a professional. The Ultralast battery lasted for 2 hours and 4 minutes while the Canon battery lasted for 3 hours and 9 minutes on the test loads.
The Ultralast battery is rated at 1150 mAh while the Canon battery is rated at 1080 mAh and both are 7.4 volts so in theory the Ultralast battery should last longer according to the amp hour rating. I also conducted tests using the batteries in my EOS Rebel XSi and found the Ultralast battery took 1345 pictures with the flash while the Canon lasted for 1923 pictures with flash.
Once I ran the flash tests I decided not to repeat this test as my flash was getting damaged so tested a round of pictures without the flash and found the Canon battery also lasted longer. The Ultralast battery was able to take 2958 pictures while the Canon battery took 4250 pictures for a difference around 30 to 35 percent for all testing.
The Canon battery lasted from 30 to 35 percent longer than the Ultralast battery but this difference also coincides with the price accordingly. The Ultralast battery costs about $17 to $20 on the internet while the Canon LP-E5 costs about $45 to $55 for a price difference with the Canon battery costing about 37 percent higher than the Ultralast.
With the Ultralast battery costing less and lasting about the same difference in cost as duration for taking pictures that Ultralast battery is a good buy. I think that my results are pretty good and show that while the Canon battery is a good one the Ultralast is just as good for the price you pay.
I also want to note that the Ultralast battery fits exactly like the Canon battery both in the camera and in the Canon camera grip I purchased. The battery is the same size and does not have any problems coming out or going into the camera body or the grip.
The Ultralast battery is a good replacement or alternative to buying the more expensive battery but works just as well with a
somewhat lower performance difference. The Ultralast battery did perform well and did take a lot of pictures even though it did not take as many as the Canon.
The Ultralast took 1345 with the built in flash and almost 3000 without so there is no problem with this battery lasting for a good long time with regular use. Ultralast batteries from the North American Battery Company may not work as well as OEM batteries that come with a Canon EOS Rebel XSi Camera but it is also less expensive.