Just bought a 7D. It's pretty hard on the battery, so I was looking on ebay for a deal on some batteries and possibly a battery grip.

I'm finding a lot of 3rd party ones that are cheap cheap cheap. Canon original ones are chipped somehow to only work with Canon equipment but a search for "LP-E6 decoded" turns up lots of batteries which should work.

Anyone have any experience with third party batteries for Canon?

SterlingTek
Most guys here use this site

All my extra batteries for my Canon 20D came from SterlingTek... *(:>*

---

“Stay Hungry Stay Foolish"
Steve Jobs

"There are only two mantras yum and yuk mine is yum "
Bernard Mickey Wrangle<>Tom Robbins<> "Still Life With Woodpecker"

"There is a fine line between a rut and a groove"
G.D. Kittredge III

"






Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2010 06:15PM by haikuman.

I would really stay with Canon stuff. I know they're expensive but I still have batteries in 5 year old cameras that work fine. Get the battery grip if you need more juice.

I've had lousy luck with generics.

Ditto. Bought a generic for my Canon G3 (might be the same battery as your 7D), and it really sucked.
Didn't hold a charge for long *AT ALL*. I was used to the stock battery on the G3 which held a charge for a very long time (that was one thing the G3 was known for, in fact).

Some of you may remember me posting that I had sent my wife off to Hawaii with the G3 and didn't pack the charger because I was just sure it would last long enough (the original one would have I had just gotten the battery, and didn't know its shortcomings). The battery died within two days. I was posting here on the forum to see if anyone was in Hawaii who could help her out! (It was a long shot, I know!).

I went ahead and bit the bullet and bought a Canon battery and it has been MUCH better.

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[www.zeemaps.com]

I buy generics all the time. Never had a problem. Nikon, Canon, MacBook Pro, Sony, etc. How hard can a battery be to make? I find Sterlingtek to be kinda ritzy. I bought 2 extra batteries plus a charger for my HTC Evo for just 9.99 (free shipping) on eBay. They work great.

There may be different qualities, manufactures, production dates that affect pricing....

[www.amazon.com]

[sterlingtek.com]

---

“Stay Hungry Stay Foolish"
Steve Jobs

"There are only two mantras yum and yuk mine is yum "
Bernard Mickey Wrangle<>Tom Robbins<> "Still Life With Woodpecker"

"There is a fine line between a rut and a groove"
G.D. Kittredge III

"






Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2010 02:31AM by haikuman.

Quote
vision63
I buy generics all the time. Never had a problem. Nikon, Canon, MacBook Pro, Sony, etc. How hard can a battery be to make? I find Sterlingtek to be kinda ritzy. I bought 2 extra batteries plus a charger for my HTC Evo for just 9.99 (free shipping) on eBay. They work great.

The worst thing about a cheap grenade/LiIon battery is that it may or may not explode, and when that may or may not happen is random.

Quote
Racer X

Quote
vision63
I buy generics all the time. Never had a problem. Nikon, Canon, MacBook Pro, Sony, etc. How hard can a battery be to make? I find Sterlingtek to be kinda ritzy. I bought 2 extra batteries plus a charger for my HTC Evo for just 9.99 (free shipping) on eBay. They work great.

The worst thing about a cheap grenade/LiIon battery is that it may or may not explode, and when that may or may not happen is random.

I'm dozens in. Has never happened. Now I've had problems with every single Apple portable battery. So much for that particular brand name.

Quote
Racer X
The worst thing about a cheap grenade/LiIon battery is that it may or may not explode, and when that may or may not happen is random.

How is that different from all the OEM batteries that have had similar problems?

I've been rotating a generic with my OEM Canon battery in my G11 since I've had it. Haven't noticed a difference, but I'm never taking several hundred shots at one time to deplete the battery that quickly.

I've been using generic replacement batteries for Canon, Panasonic and Nikon digital cameras since the original Canon Digital Elph - the 2 megapixel one. Mostly Canons in this inventory, however.

These batteries were normally used in a rotation - one in charger, one in camera, etc. I cannot say I've noticed any significant life expectancy advantage to the OEM batteries. My wife's batteries for her older Panasonic ALL died at the same time - both the original and 2 generics hit the wall within the same month. Very odd, but made me think the death was due to simply a combination of shelf-life and regular use. I DID rule out the possibility of death by the charger.

Just checked my records, some batteries came from batteries.com (they do not carry a full inventory in my experience, so they are not a guaranteed one-stop shopping), and individual orders from batteryspace.com and bargainbasementbattery.com. Can't add more than the batteries worked as advertised in each case.