spare battery/battery grip advice

adbp1 · 22 Oct 2012 at 23:00

Hi all, was looking at getting new spare battery as either forget to charge or forget to take off charge and leave battery at home :eek:

was looking at getting on of the hahnel batteries from wex as they are like £25,
but then found on auction site i can get 2 batteries and grip for £50.
done a view searches and found a few people saying the cheap grips are still as good but just made of plastic.

any thoughts and has anyone bought one of the grips before instead of paying £260 for original nikon.

grip mb-d10
battery en-el3e

thanks Ali

James J · 22 Oct 2012 at 23:06

If you want an official MB-D10 grip, buy second hand and make sure the AA battery chamber is enclosed also. It has the benefit of having weathersealing, whilst the cheap 3rd party plastic ones don't. Can be had for around £115 second hand in great condition if you look around second hand.

Hahnel batteries are fine to use also and work just like the official ones do, including life metering etc.

adbp1 · 22 Oct 2012 at 23:11

thanks thats good to know, i might buy a hahnel battery for now and look out for proper mb10

James J · 22 Oct 2012 at 23:21

I use to own a D300s and the official grip but ended up taking the grip off most of the time as it can still only take 1 battery anyway, compared to older grips like the D90 one which can take two at the same time. Instead, you can keep one of the batteries in the camera body and decide which battery to use from the menu, which I hated. Taking the grip off everytime I wanted to get the body battery out was a pain in the backside.

However, you do get the choice of using a D3 battery instead (EN-EL4/A) which dramatically increases the battery life available to the camera, whilst unlocking faster FPS. For that though you also need the charger for that battery and the compartment cover, the former being expensive!

adbp1 · 22 Oct 2012 at 23:25

James J said:
I use to own a D300s and the official grip but ended up taking the grip off most of the time as it can still only take 1 battery anyway, compared to older grips like the D90 one which can take two at the same time. Instead, you can keep one of the batteries in the camera body and decide which battery to use from the menu, which I hated. Taking the grip off everytime I wanted to get the body battery out was a pain in the backside.

However, you do get the choice of using a D3 battery instead (EN-EL4/A) which dramatically increases the battery life available to the camera, whilst unlocking faster FPS. For that though you also need the charger for that battery and the compartment cover, the former being expensive!

just to clarify i can only use one battery at a time even tho i got both in?!! I thought it would use both and give extra time and speed.
if thats the case then i wont bother! and just buy spare battery.

James J · 22 Oct 2012 at 23:55

Only uses 1 battery at a time yes, but it'll switch to the other battery when it gets low. The older style grips use to have two batteries side by side (like the D90 grip iirc) and that would use both to simply double the amount of shooting time.

PistolPete · 23 Oct 2012 at 09:54

James J said:
Only uses 1 battery at a time yes, but it'll switch to the other battery when it gets low. The older style grips use to have two batteries side by side (like the D90 grip iirc) and that would use both to simply double the amount of shooting time.

Am I missing something here?? It takes 2 batteries, uses one then switches to the other...... how is this fundamentally any different from it using 2 batteries at the same time save for the battery indicator maybe?