C100: 3rd party batteries

One other reason I stick with Canon batteries on Canon cameras...the chip. Canon is notorious for not cooperating with third party vendors. They don't release any of their lens protocols so companies making lenses for EF have to reverse engineer and guess if they're getting it right. This is why some third party lenses don't always play nice with certain Canon features. For a battery, it's going to be in the information sent to the camera about how much power is left and then in the charger where the chip is going to mess with you.
 
Andrius Simutis said:
One other reason I stick with Canon batteries on Canon cameras...the chip. Canon is notorious for not cooperating with third party vendors. They don't release any of their lens protocols so companies making lenses for EF have to reverse engineer and guess if they're getting it right. This is why some third party lenses don't always play nice with certain Canon features. For a battery, it's going to be in the information sent to the camera about how much power is left and then in the charger where the chip is going to mess with you.
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I've never had a 3rd party battery that couldn't display it's time remaining on the camera. Canon can't keep up with manufacturers reverse engineering and replicating their chips.

As I said before, if you're really that concerned then use SWIT. Canon is notorious for massively overcharging for batteries and trying to lock out 3rd party manufacturers. My 3rd party LP-E6 charged with my original 5D charger. When I sold that and bought a 60D the batteries would no longer charge on the newer charger. I bought a 3rd party charger which charges them fine. I guess they hope people will assume their batteries are defective and fork out £79 each for new LP-E6. When I read Amazon reviews of DOA batteries, I wonder if they tried to charge them on an official Canon charger and when it didn't charge, call them DOA.

I've used these 3rd party LP-E6 for over 3 years now! Used heavily with a 5D, 60D and SmallHD DP4. I think I paid around £10 each for these. £30 vs £237.

Canon, especially for their DSLRs want people in their eco-system. Buying their batteries and lenses. Now this is carrying over into their video cameras.

Now look at new companies like Atomos, SmallHD and Blackmagic. Atomos supplies their Ninja Star with a generic NP-F battery. Do you need to use a legit Sony battery? Of course not. Does it display accurate battery life? Yes. Does the battery have a chip? no. Canon's batteries are only chipped in order to try and prevent 3rd party battery use.

I remember back when I had an XL2 there wasn't the big thing about 3rd party batteries. Everyone used them and recommended them. Now more and more Canon batteries are chipped and their marketing and scare tactics seem to be working, at least on some people.

Vote with your wallet.

PS: As adolgin said a few messages back. A battery cannot damage your camera unless it literally explodes inside it. I have never in my life heard of a 7.4V camera battery exploding. Most often it's OEM laptop batteries :)

People saying it will void warranty. All I can do is shake my head and laugh. You truly have been tricked!
 
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I have used third party battery in my DSLR days, once. That was in 2006 when I had bought third party batteries to go with my Canon 1D Mark II. Those batteries died much before my original canon batteries.

I use a C300. The cost of battery (original vs cheap third party) is not worth your peace of mind. In the long run, things even out. Not all third party batteries are made the same. Some run for the initial few times fine and then lose the charge or die down or worse explode. If you can trust the quality of the third party batteries on critical shoots, in the middle of nowhere, then you would be a very brave man. I won't allow everything to potentially fail because of me trying to save a 100 usd.

There are some people who may argue vehemently in support of third party batteries. However, I would prefer to spend my time in areas where I can save more costs and in areas where I can earn more money. Cost cutting at the cost of reliability is not a good idea in my book.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
Most high end cameras use third party batteries; Red, Sony F65, Arri Alexa, etc., such as Anton Bauer mounts or V-mounts which are sold from a variety of third party companies. Red sells Red Bricks but I rarely see them being used on Red cameras. Why should lower end cameras then not use third party batteries if the higher end cameras are willing to "risk" it?
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Big difference. Panny, Sony, etc. design their cameras to work with and they cooperate and collaborate with manufacturers like AB. Canon tries to keep their camera ecosystem closed. It's one of the things that's really holding them back in the real production world. I know for a fact that large dealers have tried to tell them this(and customers), but they still to an extent treat the cinema camera division like its the consumer dslr division.
 
Run&Gun said:
Big difference. Panny, Sony, etc. design their cameras to work with and they cooperate and collaborate with manufacturers like AB. Canon tries to keep their camera ecosystem closed. It's one of the things that's really holding them back in the real production world. I know for a fact that large dealers have tried to tell them this(and customers), but they still to an extent treat the cinema camera division like its the consumer dslr division.
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This. Keeping users in an eco-system was usually reserved for the photography scene. You were either Canon or Nikon. Buying their batteries and lenses. If you were buying 3rd party battery grips, batteries and lenses you were looked down upon buy the guys with all the gear (and no idea).

Unfortunately Canon are pushing this mentality into their Cinema line. A part of me even thinks the 8.4V DC input is to put off people using V-Lock batteries. The cables to go from 12V DTap to 8.4V aren't cheap.
 
I haven't used any batteries other than Canon's on my C100, so I can't comment on those personally. I have used third party LP-E6 in my 7D back in the day. They'd show full charge, then bam! Dead. Right in the middle of a shot. Never lasted anywhere as long as the Canon ones. Three different brands of third party, so it's not like I chose one bad company. I chose three.
I use Eneloop AA rechargeables in my photo flashes. They work great. Flash recycles quickly and all is well. I needed more on a shoot and didn't have access to my Eneloops, so I picked up another brand for my other two flashes. Those two flashes would fire, then shut off or just become unresponsive. Things got weird. Once I switched back to my Eneloops there were no more problems. Yeah, Eneloops cost more but to me it was a complete waste buying those other rechargeables.
 
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