Canon 7D Battries - Real or Fake?

[dulvariprestige]

I got it from link delight

[peterking]

Don't know about the 7D but my 350D fakes were a disaster. Didn't last six months.
Went and bought some genuine ones.

[Pinarelloman]

I recently purchased a 7D in Hong Kong & the generic battery will not charge in the Canon charger. I will be keeping it for emergencies only.
On my 30D, the generic battry charged in the canon charger & had a larger capacity. It never gave any problems in the 3 years I owned it.

[Helen S]

I too, went genuine when I bought my 5DII (genuine BG, as well) and have since bought two more genuine Canon batteries. Just need to pick up a second charger now as it's a pain in the proverbial only charging one at a time. Still the battery life on the genuines are awesome... same kind of life as what I have with my 2200mA generic ones for the 40D.

[Speedway]

I recently purchased a 7D in Hong Kong & the generic battery will not charge in the Canon charger. I will be keeping it for emergencies only.
On my 30D, the generic battery charged in the canon charger & had a larger capacity. It never gave any problems in the 3 years I owned it.

All generic battery sites I have viewed have a warning that if you charge the generic battery with the genuine charger you will ruin it. This may be completely destroying it or just reducing the output to a point where it no longer performs correctly.
Keith.

[Speedway]

I got it from link delight

Same place I got my 400D one from. Have you contacted them re the problem.
Keith.

[etherial]

I ended up buying a cheap battery just to have in emergency as it came with a car charger. I also bought another genuine and have been using it. I haven't had the need to use the cheap battery as the genuines are so good. I am getting well over 1200 frames from a battery!

[dulvariprestige]

Just an update,
I broke the charger for my generic batteries, so I bought two of batteries and chargers from the site where Keith got his, this way I can use the chargers for the other two bateries, left them on charge all night, put them in the camera and again, the fps is definitely lower than OEM batteries.

[ricmcd]

The after market ones will work but in my experience on a 5D mkII they will not hold charge for long and aome of the camera features do not work, eg the battery level indicator

[Speedway]

Just an update on this thread.
I have 1 genuine and 2 generic batteries for my 7D and after 9000 actuations I cannot tell the difference between them except the no communication with the camera but this doesn't worry me as usually the first indication that the battery is low is the camera stops working. the main thing thing I found when research the batteries is that you mustn't charge them with the genuine charger as this can kill the generic batteries. I nave put the canon charger away so I can't use it. The generic charger is ok to charge the genuine battery. I also have 1 genuine and 3 generic batteries for my 400d battery grip and with about 35000 actuations I have had no problems with these either. Also during my research I found most camera batteries "genuine and generic" are made by the same company. Panasonic. Also regarding the FPS I still have no problems see here.

[Tannin]

I buy genuine every time, they're not that expensive

Ha! Post of the week! Funniest thing I've read all day.

More generally (to the thread as a whole, not just Phil) let's get rid of this "fake" nonsense, shall we?

Batteries are batteries. They come in various shapes and sizes, and in different qualities too. You will generally see only three sorts:

1: Canon-branded ones. Good quality, ridiculous prices. Canon make about 75% profit on these.

2: Other brands. Good to very good quality (not infrequently superior to the Canon-badged ones, but typically about the same), reasonable prices. Very common on the market.

3: Shonky brands. Avoid. You can recognise them by the ridiculously low price.

Who is making batteries suitable for the 7D already? Don't know. The brands I usually buy don't seem to have bothered yet. In fact, against my better judgement, I bought a Canon one the other week because I couldn't find anything else.

[etherial]

I agree with you Tony, the real vs fake was not a good choice of words. I agree 100% with you post, the only issue is working out which of the non-canon brand batteries are the 2s and which are the 3s!

The one I bought was ridiculously low in price, but seems to work fine. Long term though it might be a different story, but I can buy 10 of them for the price of a Canon branded one so I think I'd be ahead buying the cheaper brands.

Thanks everyone for their input.

[bpratt]

I have just bought my 7D, and I also bought two of the generic batteries which came with 240/12v chargers.

At around the $40-50 mark for battery and charger, I figured that should I get a lower charge life for the batteries, I have the advantage of a 12 volt charger for on-road charging, and can now charge both batteries at the same time.


I also used a generic alongside a genuine battery in my 350D grip, and never had an issue there.


I am disappointed that the camera doesn't want to know the battery, as far as info on it goes, but with two batteries in the 7D grip, I don't think I'll be too concerned.

[Speedway]

I just had a big weekend at the Riverland two day Go Kart meeting and ran a test on the genuine canon battery alongside the generic battery. The score canon 1236 actuations, generic 1392 actuations. All shots using the 7D and the 18-250 sigma, also there was no perceivable difference in FPS rate between the two batteries. Both batteries were fully charged the night before using the generic chargers and my other generic battery did the last few races each day after the fully charged ones had gone flat. I took a total of 3026 shots for the two days.
Keith.

[simonw]

I have 1 ebay cheapie ($12) and my genuine, the generic once lasts just as long as the genuine and has probably been through about 10 charges now.

[deasty1]

I agree with Speedway.
I have 2 genuine and 4 generic with my 50D. Battery level indicator works and I can find no difference between them.

[achee]

You will generally see only three sorts:

1: Canon-branded ones. Good quality, ridiculous prices. Canon make about 75% profit on these.

2: Other brands. Good to very good quality (not infrequently superior to the Canon-badged ones, but typically about the same), reasonable prices. Very common on the market.

3: Shonky brands. Avoid. You can recognise them by the ridiculously low price.

What are the 'other' brands? It seems like they are referred to here as 'generic.' I'm keen to buy a spare battery or two, but I want to make sure I can differentiate between #2 and #3.

Oh, and what are 'ridiculous' prices... lower than $10 / $20 / $40 ea?

[dulvariprestige]

What I've noticed, is if you use one generic, and one genuine, the camera's fps and battery meter work fine, but if I use two generic, fps drops and battery meter doesn't work, but I'm not sure if it's wise to mix batteries, so I use the genuine ones and just have the generics for back up.

[Speedway]

There is nothing in a battery to cause the slow frame rate you say you are having, does the auto focus work properly when using the generic batteries. Have you at any stage tried to charge the generic batteries with the genuine charger. I have no such problems with my 7D using 1 genuine and 3 generic batteries, I have also spoken to 2 other 7D and 1 5D11 user and none have had any problems with generic batteries.
Keith.

[dulvariprestige]

Not a focus problem, not a charging problem.

I've recorded it on the iPhone, just need to figure out how to post it up.