I bought a light from Jessops ( £60, 35watt - which I got for £38 ) that fixes to the shoe, it uses an external battery pack so it doesnt waste the cams juice up.

I'm not too happy with it though, because it takes 12 hours to charge and then lasts 5 to 10 minutes. When it works its great for the first 5 minutes while its bright, then its very dim until it just turns off after 10 minutes.

This sound about right? Or have I got a dodgy battery? Could anyone reccommend a better light for around £40?

does seem very short, but i don't have experience of these type of lights. I'd feel cheated if it only lasted that long. Can it draw power from the camera as an alternative, or is it battery pack only?

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AMD Athlon 1700 (@2200mhz from 1466 sod the noise!) - 768mb pc3200 - 200GB Maxtor - Pioneer 106 - GF4 Ti4200 - twinhan/visionplus pci dvb-t - random pci analogue tv tuner - A7v600-x (to replace the a7n8x-d that died...) - random 17\" CRT
Sony STR-DE425 & Eltax c205s;
xBox w/20GB HDD- executer 2.3b;
xBox - standard;
Konica/Minolta dimage z10 w/2x512mb SD;
iRiver h340;
A silly amount of Cat-5 and usb cables

I had a similar problem. I now use a 5Ah Pag battery for it, and it lasts ages and ages. Expensive way round it though. Look out for them on EBay.

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www.playpauseclick.com

Do you have the same light as me? I'm not sure what battery packs will work with this because it seems to be pretty unique to me, not sure though..

more expecisve but an excellent light is the Paglight C6 kit. I think they're about £150 new but you can pick up bargains

I suggest you keep your eye on this auction http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...sPageName=WDVW

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

Getting into the good but ridiculously expensive bracket is the hyperllight 471 from photon-beard.
It lasts for hours, has a luverly soft light and hardly gives out any heat at all.
Extensively used in the porn industry for close-ups, so I've been told.
Only costs £359 quid.

http://www.photonbeard.com/fluor.cfm

Just a silly suggestion...