You may know Hahnel as a premium photography accessories brand that makes third-party peripherals such as the Hahnel ProCube 2 charger or UniPal Extra power bank and universal charger.
We’ve been using the HLX-E6N batteries for years on our full-frame Canon DSLR and mirrorless cameras and have always been very impressed giving them rave reviews, with a single fully charged Extreme battery often going the distance on long shoots such as weddings and events.
Hahnel's Extreme range are juiced up with higher capacities than the manufacturer's default offerings and also come with added insulation to help them perform better in harsh climates and also give them a certain amount of shock resistance too.
Read more: The best camera batteries
We recently met up with product specialist David Holley at The Societies of Photographers 2023 London Photo Trade Show. David is a product specialist at Transcontinenta, the company behind distribution for Tamron, LeoFoto and Hahnel to name but a few of its brands. David revealed that a new Hahnel Extreme battery is on its way for the Sony full-frame mirrorless Alpha series and will have the product name HLX-XZ100.
It will come loaded with the companies next generation of Lithium battery technology, taking the Extreme battery from the current 2000mAh to 2400mAh - an improvement of 20% on Hahnel’s previous generation, and a 5.2% capacity boost over Sony’s proprietary NP-FZ100 battery. However, as an 'Extreme' battery you'll also have the added shock resistance and climate performance too. It’s due to be launched in May this year and is expected have an RRP of around £75 including VAT.
David also revealed Hahnel's current Extreme battery range is scheduled for a refresh to include the new next generation cells.
Canon’s latest high capacity LP-E6NH batteries for the likes of the EOS R5 and R6 have a capacity of 2130mAh, so if Hahnel was able to bring out a Canon-fit battery with a capacity of 2400mAh this would be an improvement of 13%, plus the shock resistance and extreme climate performance would be very welcome additions too.
While we know that these batteries are in development for Canon and Nikon we are yet to have any concrete details about capacity or availability, though pricing is expected to be similar to the the new HLX-XZ100.
The extra power from higher capacity cells could be a game-changer for videographers and users of mirrorless cameras with LCD displays and electronic viewfinders which are all very power hungry.
You can check out the latest Sony rumors in our hub. You can also find our guides to the best Sony lenses and the best Sony cameras.
