10Feb Decoded Generic batteries for your 7d, 60d, and 5d mark II. Are they any good?
I’m not sure what it is about film makers, but it always seems like they’re trying to save money. Often the things they want to cut corners on are items that could be really helpful. But every once in awhile something comes along that is actually over priced for no reason at all.
In case you haven’t guess, i’m referring to name brand batteries. In the past it has been very easy to find and use generic batteries in camera equipment, but in the last few years manufactures have been trying to add specialized chips that render generic batteries useless or, at the very least, less effective in daily use.
Canon is no exception. They have added special chips to their batteries that communicate battery level and identifying information to the camera. Without this chip, you get a warning from your camera each time you turn it on and no battery level meter to speak of. But the generic battery companies have struck back by decoding the chip and adding it to the newest line of replacement LP-E6 batteries.
In the past I have been reluctant to recommend generic batteries because of my own experience with a battery melting down. With that in mind I spent almost 6 months testing and using these batteries to make sure they work as well as the Canon originals. I can safely say that they do.
Two of the batteries pictured above are generic and 2 are original. After 6 months of use I can’t tell the difference, and if it weren’t for the mark I placed on the bottom I would have no idea which is which. I wont say that they are better then the name brand battery, but I will say that I haven’t experienced any noticeable difference in performance.
If you do plan to buy the generic batteries, I recommend sticking to batteries in the $20 price range as some of the $6.95 ebay specials are a bit shifty. The generic batteries above are made by Opteka and re-branded by a company in China. If you don’t want the fake canon branding you can have your batteries in under a week from amazon, but if you do want them re-branded it will take about 3 weeks from china and the best place to look is ebay.
If you still don’t trust them, then there are still plenty of canon brand batteries to go around.
July 5th, 2011 at 2:44 pm
[…] I thought I’d take a look around and see if the state of generic batteries has changed. The fully decoded LP-E6 batteries have been around for awhile, and I’ve had good luck using them in my Canon 7d, but at the […]
December 29th, 2011 at 2:03 am
And any suggestions about generic LP-E6 battery chargers?