Canon 7D Battries - Real or Fake?

[RamblinR]

The 7d battery lasts well but it's always nice to have a spare just in case. Have purchased copies before for my 40d and never had a problem but the 7d is playing hard ball.

I gather the following is a genuine battery. I'm thinking of purchase one.

Your thoughts?

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/LP-E6-LPE6-Ba...item27b309f961

[RaoulIsidro]

I always buy genuine batteries for my DSLRs.
The cost is higher than after market clones as you are paying not only for the brand but the whole design system integrated with the "camera to battery communication."
Canon or Nikon will never give the blueprints of their battery designs that have integrated chips that communicate with current and future cameras.
All clone batteries are reverse engineered, taken apart brand new, and cloned by the gray manufacturers. They can emulate the physical make up of the cell, but they cannot squeeze out the digital information from those intelligent chips. That is why they are not "future proof". Most original batteries (and lenses) are "forward compatible" and they are prepared for future DSLRs yet to be released. Clones can only service the current stable.
The price hike is a small amount to shell out for peace of mind.
I recall, about 8 years ago, Nikon took the great responsibility of recalling millions of defective batteries worldwide to replace them with brand new ones, no questions asked, just because of a few fault incidents. My almost exhausted and spent batteries were replaced with brand new ones by Nikon. That is a responsible move by a manufacturer.
Clone battery manufacturers will never do that, even with a few explosions of their products here and there.

[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.

I just thought I would bump this thread as now after over 2 years use and 40,000 actuations I can report on the long term usage of the genuine v aftermarket batteries. The genuine canon battery now delivers less than 500 shots per charge and this is dropping fast. The aftermarket ones still deliver well over 700 shots per charge. The FPS of both types is unaltered. I have just bought an aftermarket battery grip, the batteries that came with this are decoded and all the reporting functions of the camera work correctly, the only difference is the new are only 1400mAh, the genuine are 1800mAh and the older aftermarket ones 2200mAh

Keith.

[agb]

I just thought I would bump this thread as now after over 2 years use and 40,000 actuations I can report on the long term usage of the genuine v aftermarket batteries. The genuine canon battery now delivers less than 500 shots per charge and this is dropping fast. The aftermarket ones still deliver well over 700 shots per charge. The FPS of both types is unaltered. I have just bought an aftermarket battery grip, the batteries that came with this are decoded and all the reporting functions of the camera work correctly, the only difference is the new are only 1400mAh, the genuine are 1800mAh and the older aftermarket ones 2200mAh

Keith.

Thanks for that information Keith. The original link to the battery that you purchased 2 years ago is no longer working, are you able to direct me to the source of the battery that you purchased. There are just so many on ebay how do you decide which are the good ones to look at. I need a second battery as a back up for the 7D.

[Speedway]

I have purchased a lot of gear from here and have never had a problem I just got one of their LCD battery grips for the 7D and it came with 2 of their decoded batteries which comunicate with the camera and can be charged with the original cherger.
Keith.

[agb]

Keith, thanks for that. It is a very low price for an lp-e6 battery.