DSTE D800 grip D.O.A

Thanks for your comments, Stephen.  My DSTE grip, with the el-18, d4 battery clone, arrived this afternoon, which is only 8 days transit from Hong Kong. The big battery is charging now, so I haven't put the grip on the camera yet.

For those that aren't familiar with the DSTE GRIP I bought, here's a quick rundown. My initial impressions are that all of the parts seem well made, good fit and finish. It's very light, but strong. I couldn't squeeze any part of the grip and detect flexing. I think that the grip is a polymer, so it doesn't have the interior metal shell of the Nikon. It does have a metal strip attached to the tripod socket, with the strip being about ½" wide and running the full length of the grip. I don't know if that would be solid enough for tripod work or not. My inclination will most likely be to take the grip off for tripod work, unless I really need the extra battery power. But, I generally do that with my Nikon grips too. The grip's locating pin is metal, instead of polymer like found on some other 3rd party grips.

The el-18 battery clone and battery chamber cover are cleverly done, and include both wall and car chargers that are specific to this battery/cover and the tray for the el-15 battery. There's a rubber door/cover for the ports in the chamber cover and a green light comes on in the el-18 chamber cover.  I didn't get any of their el-15 clone batteries, which is probably required to use these charging units in the DSTE el-15 battery tray. At least, I haven't yet figured out how it would work on them.

I'm looking forward to checking the operation of the camera with this d4 battery clone, but I don't anticipate anything different than what the other folks have stated in that regard.

Kerry

--
my gallery of so-so photos
http://www.pbase.com/kerrypierce/root