matt-to wrote:
I mean particularly for r2 batteries which are obsolete. That's why I tried third party but my experience hasn't been as great as yours.
Yup, a7rii, that's what I have too.
If people want to pay Sony $75. for a battery that Sony probably paid $10. to source that's fine with me. But I've been using third party batteries for over twenty years and their performance has been indistinguishable from the real things. I have heard all the urban legends about third party batteries and the "why would you put a $ battery in a $$$$ camera" arguments many times and I remain unimpressed.
This is one of those subjects people will probably always disagree on.
Sony batteries may be over priced, but I won’t use 3rd party batteries if free after my experience.
When my Rav Power battery swelled up, the other Rav Power battery in the bag with it had no issues. It is hit and miss. My Sony batteries were in the same bag.
I’ve never heard a horror story with Sony batteries swelling. All batteries lose capacity eventually.
Spend thousands and thousands of dollars on bodies and lenses, put crappy batteries with well known, well reported issues in just to save a buck.
That's like putting high ethanol gas in your maclaren because it's 10 cents cheaper per gallon.
As far as I'm concerned, buying brand name batteries is part of the price of admission. If I can't afford the official battery, I can't afford photography.
matt-to wrote:
Well it's not that obvious for people who haven't experienced issues with third parties batteries or heard of horror stories from others. It's a learning process. Personally I had my experience, won't buy 3rd party batteries again.
If we take your rationale further though, we shouldn't use 3rd party lenses because it could damage the body mount etc.... so I think it's normal for people to want to take shortcuts sometimes, budget is not always what we would like it to be.
when you've used literally dozens of aftermarket batteries without issue, it stops being a concern. Some folks have been shooting for decades, it's not like fake batteries came around just yesterday. The entire NPF battery system for high end video cameras are fakes galore. There are light manufacturers that make NPF clones for their products, are those considered fake?
I've had good luck with Wasabi Power batteries. Both with Nikon and now my Sony A9. I use them in the grip. No problems in either body. This is my experience, so YMMV. But if I recall, Sony isn't a battery manufacture, I figure they buy them from someone.
These posts are all anecdotes. If there is decent data regarding third party battery reliability, I've not seen it. Stories are great, entertaining, but not a substitute for data. It's almost like politics with the "what about's."
It's all about MY experience, be it good or bad. No question, from these anecdotes, it's likely (but not certainly) safer to go with the manufacturers' batteries. The logic of saving a few bucks on what could be the weakest link in a critical chain of image making is just not there.
Absent decent data favoring third party batteries, I too have gone with originals. I did buy a third party grip since should it fail, I can still use the camera and it's something I use rarely. If a third party battery gets stuck in the camera, you're toast, and will surely miss that photo of the alien exiting the spacecraft
The grip issue is not something I thought of. If I did use a grip, I might use 3rd party batteries. If they swell up in the grip, I can always remove the grip and still used the camera.
I don’t know if any accurate data for failures exists for OEM or 3rd party batteries and we are all left guessing.
gnet158 wrote:
I've had good luck with Wasabi Power batteries. Both with Nikon and now my Sony A9. I use them in the grip. No problems in either body. This is my experience, so YMMV. But if I recall, Sony isn't a battery manufacture, I figure they buy them from someone.
Most likely from the same factory that 3rd party batteries are produced.
gnet158 wrote:
I've had good luck with Wasabi Power batteries. Both with Nikon and now my Sony A9. I use them in the grip. No problems in either body. This is my experience, so YMMV. But if I recall, Sony isn't a battery manufacture, I figure they buy them from someone.
My FZ100 say "Cells made in Japan, processed in China" (in the tiniest font imaginable ). Sony used to manufacture great batteries but afaik sold that division to Murata. That said, China spent a lot of money on developing batt tech and manufacturing processes, which is where I assume most 3rd party batts are sourced, and their LiFePos seem good enough for Tesla's standard range models - so I don't think it's as clear-cut as it was 10 years ago.
Plus, even if Sony made their own batteries, and maybe Panasonic, I don't think Canon and Nikon do. For me it basically boils down to "does the 3rd party have anything to lose in terms of brand and name recognition or can they just buy the cheapest cells and if something goes wrong, oh well... time to "start a new brand" (i.e. slap different labels on the batteries)?"
I also use a mix of Wasabi and Sony OEM and I trust them more now than I did 7 or so years ago. I used to use Wasabi as my fallback batteries but now I don't blink using them as my primaries and rotating through Sony and Wasabi. Sony is definitely the safe bet and they do last a very long time as I've said before (longer than I use cameras usually).
doc4x5 wrote:
These posts are all anecdotes. If there is decent data regarding third party battery reliability, I've not seen it. Stories are great, entertaining, but not a substitute for data. It's almost like politics with the "what about's."
It's all about MY experience, be it good or bad. No question, from these anecdotes, it's likely (but not certainly) safer to go with the manufacturers' batteries. The logic of saving a few bucks on what could be the weakest link in a critical chain of image making is just not there.
Absent decent data favoring third party batteries, I too have gone with originals. I did buy a third party grip since should it fail, I can still use the camera and it's something I use rarely. If a third party battery gets stuck in the camera, you're toast, and will surely miss that photo of the alien exiting the spacecraft ...Show more →
This comes up routinely. After spending many $1000s on a camera folks want to save $30/$40 on a Chinese battery and or charger. These chargers/batteries are often on 24/7.
Realize that a prime source of a fire can be a lithium battery that goes Nova. Close to other Li ON batteries and you can, rarely but tragically, burn down your house.
You pay a good amount of money for home fire insurance. Just fork up a bit more for the safest possible battery.
SoundHound wrote:
This comes up routinely. After spending many $1000s on a camera folks want to save $30/$40 on a Chinese battery and or charger. These chargers/batteries are often on 24/7.
Realize that a prime source of a fire can be a lithium battery that goes Nova. Close to other Li ON batteries and you can, rarely but tragically, burn down your house.
You pay a good amount of money for home fire insurance. Just fork up a bit more for the safest possible battery.
Well people spend tens of thousands of dollars for their gear and yet cheap out and not buy a couple hundred for insurance. I can guarantee you that more people had their gear damaged or stollen than their gear destroyed by batteries.
It's irritating to look at specs and see that they probably put 2 or 3 li ion cells plus circuitry in a battery. I could get excellent quality, AFAIK, name brand, larger 18650's <$5/cell last I checked.
If I was going to photograph the Iditarod, I'd get OEM. Temperature matters. In summer if its 90°+, I could use old 3rd party in my 30D and get over 1k shots IIRC. 40's F/ <10° C probably wouldn't work too well.
Safety matters but li ion is in everything. Not real happy about it not sure if I can do anything about it though. I usually just get B&H or something 3rd party if I buy 3rd party. You'd think they'd do some kind of qc to keep from ticking people off
For those that find themselves normally only needing one battery for an outing, maybe an aftermarket would make sense for a "just in case" option for rare use.
For me, I have 2 Sony batteries for my A7R4, just makes it simpler in my book.
SoundHound wrote:
This comes up routinely. After spending many $1000s on a camera folks want to save $30/$40 on a Chinese battery and or charger. These chargers/batteries are often on 24/7.
Realize that a prime source of a fire can be a lithium battery that goes Nova. Close to other Li ON batteries and you can, rarely but tragically, burn down your house.
You pay a good amount of money for home fire insurance. Just fork up a bit more for the safest possible battery.
Not sure if anyone remembers Sony's mid-2000s lithium-ion battery fiasco where they had to recall 7 million laptop batteries due to fire risk, or Samsung's Note 7 battery fires. Samsung cells are otherwise considered top-notch now.
On a sidenote, I honestly would not trust Amazon to always deliver 100% authentic items and not mix in some random inventory from another random seller with the original Sony inventory. The most worrisome battery to me is a counterfeit one where you can be sure that the manufacturer cut every corner. I've received a couple SD cards that were questionable, probably counterfeit. Maybe it's better now but I'd buy from a photo retailer.
OEM battery can't guarantee it won't swell up.. I have old Sony FW-50 batteries got swollen (slightly, not noticeable when used with old NEX but very tight in A7R2), my old macbook pro got swollen battery, my mom's Sony phone got a badly swollen battery... I"m quite convinced that all Li battery will eventually "grow up".
I have SIDO (probably not available in US) and Pisen batteries mainly because those are freebie from local chain (biggest chain by the richest guy here) when I purchased my cameras. I also purchased Pisen brand when Nikon no longer make battery for D700.
That said, I still prefer buy OEM (from reliable source), I don't buy other brands just for being slightly cheaper. I have RAVPower battery only because I want a usb-powered dual FW-50 charger and batteries came with it (I need multiple FW50 a day when I travel ). I not overly worried about 3rd party batteries (which make lots of batteries that fit different camera brands), but counterfeit one would be scary.
