Genuine grip or ebay one?

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Dave Pickett

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Dave Pickett
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Always good for a debate! Anyway my D300s arrived yesterday and I wanted a grip and the bigger battery, so the choices were:

Brand whore:

Nikon Grip £200
Nikon ELn4 Battery £100
Nikon charger £172

Total £472

or ebay warrior

Link delight grip £45
Battery and charger £42 (cheapest was £24!)

Total £87

Would anyone seriously buy the branded stuff?
 
Are you made of money?

I bought mine from Link Delight, no complaints from me, grip and 2 batteries bargin, saved a fortune
 
It's a case of you pays your money and takes your choice with these things. I managed to get an OEM grip from MPB Photographic for my 5D2 and fortunately for me, Canon repaired both body and grip when a fault on the grip required a change of main board in the body. I wonder what how a service center would respond if a fault occurred which was caused by a 3rd party grip. The savings if all goes well can be very tempting.


Cheers


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You can get the Nikon PDK1 which has all you need...

Includes - MB-D10, EN-EL4a & MH-21 charger, BL-3 all for £399 - maybe cheaper if you do a search....
 
I use the third party Meike one, got it off eBay for about £40. Saved me a fair amount and no complaints.
 
I've had original grips 10D (still have), 30D, 40D & 5D and I had a Phottix grip for my 5DMk2, it was indistinguishable from the OEM one but at 1/3rd of the price.
 
On my wifes 400d its aftermarket and works great. Build quality superb. Cost £30 including postage from Asia
On my 50d original canon. Got as a present. If I was to buy one I would have got a aftermarket as the difference in price did not warrant the extra cost.
On batteries I stay with originals. All the aftermarket ones in my experience have not lasted long.
 
Somebody will be telling you that third party batteries will explode and possibly wipe out your neighbourhood let alone you very expensive camera, just ignore them it's an "urban myth" like mobile phones blowing up petrol stations and stopping life support machines in hospitals. Come to think of it that would make a good subject for a post? Seriously though I've never had anything but good experiences with third party batteries and have the grip that your considering and love it, so go ahead and save yourself a fortune.
 
I use a genuine one on my (Sony) camera, the copies all lack many of the back buttons and the joystick thing, so while cheaper are much less functional, which rather defeats the object if using it in portrait orientation.

Genuine Sony batteries can be had for £20-25 from time to time, which is when I bought my spares.
 
Rarely use mine, but if you stuck a Nikon sticker on Link Delight one I would be none the wiser. Good quality.
 
Just to clarify I have ordered the ebay set. I have a nikon grip on my s5 pro, and a link delight on my D90. If anything the LD one is more pleasant to use as the shutter button has a more defined two stages.
 
I've just ordered a Link Delight grip for my D90 for £25 delivered. For something I may not (and probably won't) use a lot the prices wanted for even a second hand "genuine" Nikon are beyond me. At the moment I can throw my ungripped D90 and 50mm f1/.4 in my laptop bag and carry it around with me "just in case", the grip would limit that.

I'd rather spend the money on stuff that'll get more use like lenses, flashgun or software. However if I really get on with the grip, I'd probably buy a genuine grip for my next body (assuming I don't get something like a D3).
 
Had both an e-bay grip and Canon grip for the 5Dmk2. I prefer the Canon grip, but that's probably down to the more solid design as the Canon grip has a magnesium body. Not sure it would matter as much if I was comparing grips that didn't have different internal construction (i.e. plastic through and through...)
 
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I read through hundreds of reviews to help me decided which way to go with this and finally took the chance and purchased a cheap grip from Amazon...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Battery-Nik...4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1290077081&sr=1-4

I really didnt expect much and thought it would be used for portraits only but now its on i cant take it off, funnily the 3rd party battery (7day shop) does not work so i bought a 2nd genuine nikon. As for build quality i cant compare to the nikon version but it fits securely and does what it suppose too, the shutter button feels fine and half shutter focus feels more or less the same. I had no idea the balance and feel of the d90 could be improved so much for such a small amount of £'s

Highly recommend a cheapy!
 
Had a linkdelight one for my 450D, it felt better quality than the camera itself (not slating the 450D, the grip was just built really well!). As for 3rd party batteries, I had them for every camera I've ever owned, no explosions to date (crosses fingers), cameras and neighbourhood all in one piece. :D
 
why bother with the an-el4 rather than rechargeable batt's?
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the el4 is rechargeable and has much higher available power - 2400mh @11.1 volts vs 9.6v @2000mah, and the el4 retains charge far longer.
 
If you buy a non nikon grip all i would say is read the instructions before you put it on the camera, some can it would seem malfunction or even effect the camera, although rare worth mentioning.
 
Dave Pickett said:
the el4 is rechargeable and has much higher available power - 2400mh @11.1 volts vs 9.6v @2000mah, and the el4 retains charge far longer.
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Is it worth the difference in price? Not in my view (and the rechargeable batt's are more freely available and are rechargeable).
 
Is it worth the difference in price? Not in my view (and the rechargeable batt's are more freely available and are rechargeable).
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Man... these EN-EL4's are the mutt's. Seriously, they last forever. I've got a set of spares that in some ways are a complete waste of money - I'll never need them! They increase the fps of the D300/s or D700 up to 8fps too :)
 
The AA's also increase the performance but I'd much rather a single li-ion battery than juggling eight for the grip, it's a pain as it is keeping the flash fed with AA batteries.

John
 
Do any of the third party grips have build quality close to OEM?
 
Flash In The Pan said:
Why? Can't you tell the difference between plastic and metal? :naughty::D
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The difference between metal and plastic? Well ones a type of material, and the other is a type of material behaviour (and a term that is commonly misused).

After the yield stress metal behaves as a plastic.
 
Thank for posts highlighting Link Delight. :thumbs: I've just been looking at grips and theirs are £100 cheaper than the oem ones.

I don't know how much I'd use a grip, so it makes sense to buy the inexpensive one first.
 
don't know how much I'd use a grip, so it makes sense to buy the inexpensive one first.
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No matter how much you use it you wont buy the genuine thing, the LD ones are excellent.
 
I use my battery grips all the time, Cant justify £200 for a grip when I could get a lens that will make more difference to the end result.

That said I do plan to get an official grip for my K7 for the weather proofing but that wont be any time soon. I will happily use my 3rd party one until then.

As has been said its down to you, If your going to be out on the slopes in the snow then the official one would be the obvious choice.
 
redddraggon said:
From the looks of it most of them seem pretty indistinguishable from OEM.
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Thanks

So, slightly different question then. Of all the 3rd party ones which has the best build quality.

'indistinguishable from OEM' is entirely dependent on the person using it. FOr example I purchased an 'indistinguishable from OEM' remote and the build quality was definitely not as good. I don't want the same thing from a grip.

Essentially which 3rd party grip would be usable on the 7D and not show any flex while firmly attached - and also show the battery status like the oem does...
 
Personal experience, of mainly low end DSLRs like the Canon xxxD range, but not magnesium bodied higher end DSLRs.
 
I'll repeat... I've had both the OEM 5Dmk2 grip and a cheap e-bay one. The ebay one didn't report both batteries correctly and certainly isn't as solid as the genuine OEM one.
 
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