Photoclubalpha

hi all

i got my self the sigma 18-250 hsm for my a700 yesterday, cameraworld at chelmsford even said that is still a nice camera. even when i was looking at nikon, anyway going to try it out to day.

i was wondering has any body tried third party battery's on a700 yet and would they advise it?
have seen on for less than twenty pounds but the cost of a new camera would be more if it whent wrong.
especially if as sony havent got a real replacment for a700 yet, then it might have to be a brand change if i like it or not.

any advice welcome.

hope all are well

mike hawthorne

Hi Mike. The 18-250mm HSM OS does not drain the battery too badly, though you get some reduction in number of shots. I do not advise third party batteries for InfoLithium. I was luckly enough to find spare batteries at very good (sub-£20) prices in special deals including a camera bag (whole lot was under £20, genuine Sony). But I also had paid £49 or so for full price spares. I suggest you hunt around and try to find the real thing at a good price. Csmeta in the USA has them for under £40 equivalent:
http://www.cameta.com/Sony-Cyber-Shot-N ... um=base_uk

Also this company has them at £38 - http://www.dc-battery.co.uk/advanced_se ... 4wod3HloIw

They also have a third party one for £15 or so. The full price of a Sony one is £69.90. You could order one of the genuine Sony ones, plus a cheap clone, for about £45. Then you could keep an eye on the cheap one and see if it was worth having.

David

I'm curious - what are the reasons for not using a 3rd-party battery? Of course if you are the kind of person who regularly shoots more in a day than one battery can handle, the cost of an OEM extra battery is not a big deal. If you're like me, the $18 non-OEM battery is for very rare occasions. I don't think I've ever used up a fully charged battery in one day, but I have the cheapo battery in the bag just in case.

I bought 3rd party batteries for earlier Alphas/KM, before InfoLithium, and while they are OK for £6 or so as an emergency they generally had no more than 2/3rds of the life of the real thing, and that was comparing new cheapies to well used old genuine items.

Even InfoLithium, in my twin charger, reports different true capacities for every batterty I have - some will show over 5 hrs when fully charged, others between 4 and 5 hrs.

I don't think third party batteries implement the Info chip correctly and they will not report their percentage charge accurately in the camera. That's all.

David

I've used a clone battery from 7 Day Shop along with my two Sony ones without any problems - I can't tell which battery is in by rate of discharge.

That's the problem - 100% charge of one battery may only be 75% of another battery showing 100%. The only way to see the actual state of your InfoLithium battery is to use the dual charger AC-VQ900AM. Alpha cameras don't use full InfoLithium reporting, though they are still the best on the market for showing battery life.

I'm happily using clone battery on MacBook. When I sold my Dynax 7D, I let remaining clone batteries go and kept the original KM ones for my A2. Although they had seen more use, and were two years older on average, by this time they were getting double the number of shots of the clones.

I think InfoLithium cells may be harder to clone badly - so the quality of InfoLithium copies may be better generally.

David

David Kilpatrick wrote:........
They also have a third party one for £15 or so. The full price of a Sony one is £69.90. You could order one of the genuine Sony ones, plus a cheap clone, for about £45. Then you could keep an eye on the cheap one and see if it was worth having.
David

and.....

I'm happily using clone battery on MacBook. When I sold my Dynax 7D, I let remaining clone batteries go and kept the original KM ones for my A2. Although they had seen more use, and were two years older on average, by this time they were getting double the number of shots of the clones.

I think InfoLithium cells may be harder to clone badly - so the quality of InfoLithium copies may be better generally.
David

Well, 1/2 the number of shots at less then 1/4 the price sounds pretty good to me! There is the fact that you have to have twice as many to carry around, but depending upon circumstances, it may be okay.

If I'm doing weddings, an extra battery in the kit is nothing, and the savings add up to more money for more lenses!

Dusty