Original grip for D500 - MB-D17

[Unlocker]

Recently I bought a D500, my first Nikon, and was put off buying an original grip as as the time the cheapest price available was around the £349 mark. As a Pentaxian and a long lens shooter I've always had original grips but have never paid more than £200 for one, so for the first time ever I've bought a third party grip for a fraction of the cost.

Thing is, even though the cheap grip does it's job, I still hanker after the genuine item as they normally feel that much better so I've been keeping a keen eye on online prices. Here's where it gets a bit strange, for the last 3 months or so the cheapest place to get a genuine item has been the Nikon UK online store at £317.99 and this week it has gone down to £280. This does seem to be the cheapest anywhere including grey imports!



So the question is for those with the genuine item, are you glad you bought it or do you wish you'd bought a cheapie at £50 or so? Equally if anyone has gone from a 3rd party grip to the genuine one, I'd love to hear your thoughts as to why you made the switch.

There have been murmurings of more prices rises on the way so I'm tempted to pull the trigger now unless someone has one going cheap?!

 

[orangeframestudio]

I've not had both for the same camera, but had genuine on my d800 and 3rd party on my d300 and d500.
The only tiny thing which I noticed is the 3rd party need a slight wobble and a re-tighten on the main screw occasionally whereas the genuine seemed to stay firm.
This might just have been me being unlucky with the manufacture of the 3rd party, but to be honest it fits snug, I just tend to tighten it when I get my camera out the bag and it's done for the day.
I got into this habit so much I did it with the genuine grip too, just to check. Not a reason to spend an extra £250+ for me.

 

[Unlocker]

One thing that I forgot to mention is that even though the camera has been set to use the grip battery first, whenever you go to check the battery status, both batteries seem to be draining equally at the same time. Wondering if that is a bug with a cheaper grip or does it happen with the genuine one too?

 

[rob-nikon]

One thing that I forgot to mention is that even though the camera has been set to use the grip battery first, whenever you go to check the battery status, both batteries seem to be draining equally at the same time. Wondering if that is a bug with a cheaper grip or does it happen with the genuine one too?

Ive never found that to occur on my original grips before. I have mine my d750 set up like that and the in camera battery is hardly ever changed as it doesn't get used much. I currently have an original on my d750 and a Meike on my d7200 (I don't use the d7200 that much). The original grip does seem much better built.i have noticed more movement on the Meike grip, when it moved slightly the green led on the back on the d7200 lights up. This doesn't happen with the orignal d750 grip.

Overall the original grips are built better. I don't believe they are from the same factory as some say they are. To me there is a difference between the feel and quality of the nikon grips and Meike, but it's hard to do a direct comparison when I don't have two grips for the same camera. It'd one of those cost versus quality decisions only you can make.

I have to say I've never paid as much for an original grip as they want for the d500. I picked up my d750 off here for only £150 so it was bit of a bargain considering how much I use it and it was unused (it was from the free grip offer).

 

[tom24]

I have used original grips after finding the 3rd party ones, to my mind not as rugged.
I got the mb-d17 when I bought the d500 but only because I had enough to cover it with the gear I was trading in.

 

[gramps]

I've got a genuine for my D7200 and a Meike for my D500 ... the genuine feels slightly better made but not £300 better by any stretch of the imagination.
The Meike has never loosened or felt vulnerable and I had it hanging from a shoulder strap.
The main difference in the Nikon and 3rd party is that the Nikon supports customising buttons, like the body does ... the 3rd party ones don't, except possibly the DSTE version. It may also be that some of the 3rd party ones will take the BL-5 and larger battery ... some reports say that they will, others say only with modding the BL-5 door catch, I haven't felt inclined to try.