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Thoughts on 2 batteries or using the battery grip??

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Pivot Pictures

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Hey

Besides the shutter button and the "sturdier feel" it gives to the camera, what other differences are there from using the battery grip and using a second Canon battery and just replacing it when the first dies?

I can get a second Canon battery for $60.00.. but I can als get the grip for $170.00..but does it really make a difference with the grip?

I can just shoot with my 1st battery and when it gets low, switch it with the new one right? It might save me $170.00 I can put towads the 70-200 Is F2.8!!

Give me your opinions and thoughts on this.

Ed
 
Pivot Pictures said:
Hey

Besides the shutter button and the "sturdier feel" it gives to the
camera, what other differences are there from using the battery
grip and using a second Canon battery and just replacing it when
the first dies?
Click to expand...
That is what I do.
Pivot Pictures said:
I can get a second Canon battery for $60.00.. but I can als get the
grip for $170.00..but does it really make a difference with the
grip?
Click to expand...
The grip will cost you $230 because you will have to buy the 2nd battery to go in the grip.
Pivot Pictures said:
I can just shoot with my 1st battery and when it gets low, switch
it with the new one right? It might save me $170.00 I can put
towads the 70-200 Is F2.8!!

Give me your opinions and thoughts on this.

Ed
Click to expand...
I don't use the grip and never have, so I can't tell you much about it. I did get to pick up a 1DMk2 a couple weeks ago, and it was nice to have the shutter button and dial in the portrait position. But it makes for a large camera.

--
Greg
http://www.pictureroanoke.com

Photography is a journey, not a destination.
 
--I don't use the grip either, but will add that many are buying a second battery for $12, rather than the Canon battery for $60.

Also worth mentioning is that battery life is very long on the 20D, with Canon saying 1000 shots and some users experiencing more, some less due to use of IS lenses. In any case, that's a long time between battery changes, making the purchace of a grip for battery reasons almost unnecessary. Buying the grip for "grip" reasons is a different story.

Jim Rickards
 
But not because it holds an extra battery. It just makes the camera nicer to handle. Verticles are much more comformatable with the extra shutter button, and control dial.

BTW, you can use the grip with just one battery

--
...Mike
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
When did photography become about technology instead of vision?
Trying to work my way up to rank amateur.

PBase Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/mikealex
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I have 4 batteries and no grip. Like people have said, I wouldn't get a grip just for the battery. If you want the extra weight and stability then use a grip for that. But for me, I like the camera as light as it can be because I carry it all the time. I just keep a battery in my pocket and a couple cf cards and shoot all day. I like the batteries from Sterling Tec. They have been great and cost much less.
--
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about!
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The grip is nice. I shoot a lot of vertical so that is the main reason I have it. It also helps balance heavier lenses. At 900 shots per battery, power concerns were't at the top of my list.

The only feature I don't see listed is the ability to use AAs instead of the BP-511s. Useless to me but maybe not to others.

--
Mike Randle
http://www.mikerandlephotography.com
 
Back in the days of non-rechargable batteries, the grip was a must-have because it was the only way you could use cheap and ubiquitous AA batteries to power your SLR.

However I find myself buying the grip on new cameras regardless of rechargeable batteries.

I shoot vertical a lot (everyone shooting people should!) and the vertical grip is just indispensable to me nowadays. Whenever I leave it off to go stealth I fing myself missing the "other shutter button" and the larger grip area.

--
Ignacio Féito
México
 
It depends on you. I shoot a --lot-- of verticals and so the grip comes in really handy. (I'm surprised that so many amateurs never, ever think to shoot a vertical. When you explain to them that as people (which are usually their subjects) tend to be "vertically oriented creatures" and putting a single person smack in the middle of a horizontal frame leaves a lot of "dead space" on either side of that person, they just don't get it. I crack up when I see the "happy snappers" shooting what would be so much better as verticals and never, ever turning the camera on end.

That said, the grip makes shooting verticals much nicer.
--
  • Rick
http://www.pbase.com/truelight
 
I have a total of three batteries, two are cheapo aftermarkets from SterlingTek (I think I'm remembering right). I use only one battery in my grip (which hardly ever comes off the camera) at a time, as I prefer to always have a fully charged battery ready to go, and I don't see any point in running down two batteries at once. (A single battery gives me more than plenty battery life.) I usually have one battery in the camera, one charged in the bag, and one on the charger at home, and I rotate as needed. If I know I'm going to be shooting a LOT (more than 1000 shots), I'll grab my third battery.

But that's just what works for me.
 
... but not for any special reason other than I have two Canon batteries and two Optex batteries, so I keep like brands together. It also helps me remember which ones need to be charged.

--
...Mike
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
When did photography become about technology instead of vision?
Trying to work my way up to rank amateur.

PBase Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/mikealex
PhotoSIG: http://www.photosig.com/go/users/view?id=176063

 
Other than the extra battery capacity, it's very subjective whether or not you like the grip. I find it much more comfortable with the grip, whether in vertical or horizontal. There isn't a right or wrong answer, it's entirely up to you whether or not you like it.

Mark
 
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