Not all of our third-party batteries have been working properly with the latest Nikon Z8. For example, the old third-party batteries I’ve been using for the Nikon Z6 do not work on my Nikon Z8.
In addition, many of the batteries in my older cameras are just old now, and they are not performing the same as they used to, so it’s time for some updates.
This brings me to a third-party battery company called Vemico, which makes some EN-EL15 batteries that work with the Nikon Z8 and all the older cameras that take this style of battery.
You can find them here on – Amazon
Also, be sure to check out my favorite Accessories for the Nikon Z8.
Vemico EN-EL15 Third-Party Nikon Battery Review
Recently, Vemico reached out to me on my Instagram to let me know about their batteries. While there are maybe a hundred companies now making third-party EN-EL15 batteries for Nikon cameras, the Vemico batteries stood out to me for one reason and one reason only—they are bright orange.
By the way, this post is not sponsored, and I paid full price for the batteries, although Vemico offered to reimburse me, which was unnecessary. I needed some new batteries anyway, so I thought I would just try these out.
Why did orange batteries catch my eye as something actually useful?
Because you do not want to mix up third-party and official batteries and accidentally use third-party batteries for something important.
For example, this winter I went out shooting in freezing conditions and my fully charged third-party battery maybe only lasted an hour. Cold weather is typically hard on batteries but the Nikon batteries aren’t usually that bad.
Also, with power-hungry cameras like the Nikon Z8, you can get some strange performance issues with some of these third-party batteries as their power drops, especially when you’re shooting at faster burst rates. This can even happen with Nikon batteries. Some camera companies like Canon will throttle the performance of some of their cameras as the battery’s power drops below 50%. So, it’s generally a good idea to keep batteries fresh and updated if you’re shooting important work.
How Do They Perform?
Not as good as official batteries and not as good as some of the better third-party batteries; for example, the SmallRig Nikon EN-EL15 batteries with the USB port are much better, although a lot more expensive.
Once you break these batteries in by cycling them a few times, the performance is acceptable for the price.
Also, one of my batteries is performing a lot better than the other, so there appears to be a copy-to-copy variance, which could likely mean you risk getting two batteries that just don’t perform well.
Vemico Battery Specs
Power Rating: 7.4V 2100mAh, 15.54Wh – by comparison, the Official Nikon batteries are 7V, 2280mAh 16Wh.
I’m not really sure why Vemico batteries are running at a higher voltage or if that will be a problem, but it does also have less Wh at 15.54Wh.
Charger: Dual USB-C charge with LCD display. – Built with multiple circuit protection with an automatic low-charging system.
Third-Party Nikon Z8 Battery – Bottom Line
There are just so many brands of third-party batteries now, it used to be that some batteries got their cells from Japan, but it now seems like most (even official) are Made in China and there really isn’t anything differentiating them anymore.
I’ve been impressed by these Vemico batteries and I like the charger. It’s a nice little package.
I also think the orange color is very nice, so I always know when I’m using a third-party battery for the Nikon Z8. The bright orange color was a really good idea.
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Bought them (your affiliate link). What can I say. They are useless. Completely useless. They did not even last for 100 shots, both of them. Please stop recommending useless stuff.
That sucks to hear. Can you still return them? Mine are working fine, just not as good as the originals, but I’ll make notes on my links and consider removing these if I can find a trend with people having issues. This is always the risk with these third-party batteries. QC is usually just pretty bad but it’s usually good to cycle third-party batteries around 5 times or so before they start performing properly. So try that.
I had some BM Premium batteries, they were great for 5 years unless the weather was very cold, but the old ones don’t work on my Z8. It looks like some links are saying they are now chipped for the Z8 so they might be a good option if you can get the latest versions. I’ll start directing people to those for now.
My usual go-to is Wasabi but I’m not sure if they have Z8 compatibility yet. Same with Eregon. This was the problem with all the brands that have been around for a while. The Z8 changed the firmware for battery compatibility and it’s taking a while for everyone to properly chip their batteries leaving us with few options.
Also, take a look at the new SmallRig batteries, they’ve been getting decent reviews. I’ve been trying to get some in Japan but can’t find them.