which cheap battery for the D300?

[stu_the_flat]

I would like a spare battery for my new camera, Would I regret buying this Cheapy on Play?

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Ele...11518|cc:|prd:12160446|cat:Camera+Accessories

I can get 20% off this calumet one.

http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/item/CJ0724/

Are there any desaster stories from buying cheap batteries? It would probably only be needed to finish off a days shooting should the main one fail.

Stuart

 

[Ady Williams]

Pay the extra and get a proper Nikon one, you won't regret the extra spent.

I've learnt the hard way that cheap ones are cheap for a reason.

 

[stu_the_flat]

Thank you for the reply.

How did your battery fail? I notice that the Calumet battery is actually higher capacity than the official Nikon one?

Cheers Stuart

 

[Beagletorque]

Plenty of S/H low mileage genuine ones about....

 

[desantnik]

I use 7day shop jobs, just like I did on all of my Canon gear before.

No problems, no difference in performance between them and my genuine Nikon/Canon batteries I have either.

D300 battery is here:

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_3&products_id=101547

 

[AdamPearcey]

Pay the extra and get a proper Nikon one, you won't regret the extra spent.

I've learnt the hard way that cheap ones are cheap for a reason.

Correct. Got myself one cheap battery for my D90 a while back. Kept telling me it had 4% bettery life after 12 hour charge. Sometimes it didnt even read it. Sometimes it wouldn't charge...

Then I got an EL4 battery for the grip on my D700... Ha. When The grip is attached to the camera and you switch it on, it shorts the power to the camera and acts as if the battery is dead... even though theres an original EL3 battery in the main part of the camera.
I feel lucky it didn't bust my camera up lol.

Do yourself a favour, spend the extra dosh and get genuine Nikon.

 

[Nod]

Almost all my spare batteries for DSLRs and compacts are 7dayshop cheapies and never had a problem with any of them.

 

[Dave Pickett]

here we go again, genuine vs ebay or similar batteries is much the same as the Nikon v Canon threads!

You must decide yourself if you are really convinced that Nikon make their own batteries or do they just buy them in and rebrand them?

My bet is on the latter and I have had no problems whatever with the ebay batteries in my D90 (or s5pro, or D60 for that matter), but if you want to pay a big premium to get Nikon printed on it, thats fine by me.

 

[Chrisbie]

had genuine batteries fail on me as well as non original
RS components www.rsww.com do Ansmann batteries, german made with a good reputation, they do an enel3e equivalent as well !!

 

[barneyrubble]

i've had EN-EL3 and 4 replacements - never had a problem.

All bought from ebay.

 

[itsdavedotnet]

there's infinite threads on this.... I have yet to see a story of actual camera damage or leak from 'fake' batteries though, although everyone likes to say that it could.

I had 1 knockoff en-el3e that occasionally couldn't keep up at 5 fps on the D200, think it was an absolute cheapest one though, I didn't buy it, came with camera.

Use enel4 replacements from 7ds and ebay now, work great.