DSLR Recommendation (1 Viewer)

[ManW_TheUncool]

Hmmm... Went ahead and purchased a D5100 (partially as a graduation present for my daughter) and just found out Nikon designed it to only work w/ their own "genuine" branded batteries, so can't go w/ some less expensive, 3rd party/OEM batteries for it -- and some folks seem to be price gouging due to the short supply right now.

Are they doing this w/ all recent/new DSLRs now? I could see spending the premium on ("genuine") batteries for a much more expensive, high-end DSLR, but seems a bit crazy to have to spend >=10% of the cost of the body for 1 additional, fairly low-powered battery -- and if one uses it to shoot much of any video, may well need more than 1 additional battery too...

_Man_

 

[Sam Posten]

YES. And it's made worse by new laws requiring smaller batteries that won't explode on airplanes. Really.
And made even worse by the fact that nobody but Nikon is allowed to repair their products with genuine Nikon parts.
This part of the future sucks unless consumers somehow grow some balls and say enough is enough

 

[Cees Alons]

Originally Posted by ManW_TheUncool /t/314755/dslr-recommendation/30#post_3945279
Hmmm... Went ahead and purchased a D5100 (partially as a graduation present for my daughter) and just found out Nikon designed it to only work w/ their own "genuine" branded batteries, so can't go w/ some less expensive, 3rd party/OEM batteries for it -- and some folks seem to be price gouging due to the short supply right now.

Are they doing this w/ all recent/new DSLRs now? I could see spending the premium on ("genuine") batteries for a much more expensive, high-end DSLR, but seems a bit crazy to have to spend >=10% of the cost of the body for 1 additional, fairly low-powered battery -- and if one uses it to shoot much of any video, may well need more than 1 additional battery too...

_Man_

True.

But you need one (or, say, 2) over a period of 5 years, or so.
Also, you can get "second-party" Nikon look-alike batteries which are much less expensive (and I suspect they are manufactured in the same Chinese factory that manufactures the genuine Nikon accus.)


Cees

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Hmmm...  Went ahead and purchased a D5100 (partially as a graduation present for my daughter) and just found out Nikon designed it to only work w/ their own "genuine" branded batteries, so can't go w/ some less expensive, 3rd party/OEM batteries for it -- and some folks seem to be price gouging due to the short supply right now. :f
Are they doing this w/ all recent/new DSLRs now?  I could see spending the premium on ("genuine") batteries for a much more expensive, high-end DSLR, but seems a bit crazy to have to spend >=10% of the cost of the body for 1 additional, fairly low-powered battery -- and if one uses it to shoot much of any video, may well need more than 1 additional battery too...
_Man_

Canon came out with a LP-E6 battery for the 7D, 60D, 5D2 (and now 5D3) that has a more sophisticated metering system -- similar to what Sony did with their camcorder batteries a few years ago. It was quite difficult to find 3rd party batteries after this new battery came out, and the early ones did not register properly with the camera's battery metering system. I can find them quite easily now, though. Sterlingtek is my preferred battery supplier. You may want to check them out occasionally to see if they come up with a solution for your Nikon, if they haven't already.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Originally Posted by Cees Alons /t/314755/dslr-recommendation/30#post_3945344
Also, you can get "second-party" Nikon look-alike batteries which are much less expensive (and I suspect they are manufactured in the same Chinese factory that manufactures the genuine Nikon accus.)

Cees

They've apparently made it extremely difficult for off-brands to work now to the point that even all the eBay sellers actually point out that their same(!) model number batteries work only for the Nikon P7000 compact, but not for DSLRs. And some of them actually look exactly like the real thing too near as I can tell. And that's part of the craziness right there too... that they'd use the same model number (EN-EL14) for a battery that only works in the P7000 and one that works in both the P7000 and their DSLRs -- well, maybe that's not Nikon's fault, and the off-brands should just add some sort of qualifier to the model number if they don't work on the DSLRs.

In any case, the confusion is apparently bad enough that complaints have made it to Amazon's reviews of the battery as well -- hard to tell whether people simply got bit by buying from Amazon's 3rd party merchants or not in the few cases I've seen.

Maybe I shoulda pulled the trigger on a battery off eBay earlier yesterday when I found a NYC seller selling good ones for $50 shippped -- they sold out by the time I made my post above.

_Man_

 

[Scott Merryfield]

This sounds similar to what HP did with their ink cartridges a few years ago. The only difference is that HP's business model was to sell the printers cheap and make the money on the consumables -- the cartridges. In Nikon's case, I cannot imagine that battery sales account for very much of their revenue stream percentage-wise. Seems like a poor strategy to piss off your customer base over a relatively small amount of money.

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

The most galling part of HP's actions wasn't that they required you to buy their own consumables...it's that they set an arbitrary date for their cartridges to "expire" and they were rendered dead once the expiration date hit...regardless of how much ink was left in the cartridge. I'll never buy another HP printer again.
As for Nikon and their batteries...I'm afraid I don't care about third party options because the EN-EL15 in my D7000 provides staggeringly great battery life. I bought a second battery when I bought the camera and I have never needed it, even on week long trips.