7D Battery

[minicoop1985]

OK, so I got my 7D, and it only had one battery. I have a quick question about batteries. Is it really worth it to go with the real Canon stuff, or can I get away with a cheaper battery? I had one for my last camera (Olympus), and it worked just fine, but I just wanted some opinions before I do. Rather not screw up this camera.

 

[EIngerson]

You should swap it out with a battery from a 5D MK III. That way you can buy the 3rd party batteries and they'll be fine. But if you buy the 3rd party batteries for the 7D they suck.

 

[Overread19 7]

Read reviews on them before buying, but yes there are good quality 3rd party batteries out there on the market for the camera. Also look into getting a battery grip for the 7D as that will give you the ability to use two batteries at once; which gives you increased duration of use as opposed to using the two batteries one by one.

Battery grips also give you portrait aspect controls and a grip to hold onto which makes portrait shooting significantly easier to shoot (without it you've got to hold your wrist in an odd position to retain control over the camera - which after a while is painful/annoying to hold).

 

[Dao]

I will buy 3rd party batteries for my camera as long as it has a lot of good reviews. One key information is whether the battery can communicate with the camera. A friend who sold batteries on the side gave me 2 new batteries when I bought a Canon Camcorder couple years ago. The batteries works except the cam cannot communicate with the batteries and so we cannot see the battery power level. He later told me that the manufacturer said they need to update the chip or something like that on the battery to make it work with the new model.

I also read stories that some batteries mAh rating were not as advertised. So if you go to a online store and find a battery that has hundreds of review and most of them are good and find reviewers mentioned about battery works well in 7D or seller has good return policy and the price is right, why not?

 

[lambertpix]

I picked up a couple of 3rd-party batteries, making sure that reviews indicated that they were compatible with the new electronics in the 7D that "track" batteries -- ie, battery #1 has been used "x" times, and so on.

The good news is that I was able to register one of the 3rd-party batteries with the camera, so it recognized it separately from the Canon battery that came with the camera. The bad news is that the other 3rd-party battery seems to be indistinguishable from the first one -- it literally thinks both of the new batteries are the same. My guess is that they've got one chip for all their batteries answering the same identifying number to the camera. Not the end of the world, and both batteries seem to work ok, but they're not *quite* the same as genuine. FWIW, I haven't done any real measurements to support this, but I think the battery life of the replacements is marginally less than the genuine article. Again, not the end of the world, as I'm really pleased with the amount of shooting I can do on a single battery as it is.

 

[minicoop1985]

Thanks for all the advice. I'll do some shopping. I have a third party battery for my Olympus DSLR, and I never noticed any difference, but since this is a far more serious camera, I thought it would be a a good idea to get advice first. The grip is a definite possibility because doing portrait like that is mighty annoying (sometimes kinda painful-I have horribly weak/bad wrists), but I do a lot of tripod mounted product shots, so it wouldn't get used a lot for the time being. Never know though-summer's coming, which means outdoor shots.

 

[grafxman]

I bought some aftermarket batteries for my 7D. I've used them a few times but I didn't like them. They don't report the information to the camera. The original battery is good for perhaps 700 or 800 shots. I also bought a battery grip. I used it for a while but I quit using it. It makes the camera a bit heavy and a little awkward. These days I just carry a spare battery in my pocket with the plastic cover on it.

 

[minicoop1985]

Alright, I bought a pair of them off Amazon for $20, did my research, and they report to the camera. This will do. Gonna wait for a bit to see if I need the grip, but I probably will. Weight isn't really an issue here. Thanks for all the help, folks.

 

[Juga]

I have one of these;

Watson LP-E6 Lithium-Ion Battery Pack (7.4V, 1750mAh) B-1517 B&H

It works perfectly in my 6D and communicates with the camera on the battery level. Can't tell a difference between this one and the Canon brand.