Why are battery grips so damn expensive?

[Fogel70]

How inexepensive it is to make those grips will depend on how many are made and sold.

The cost is not in the materials but in the design and then the machinery needed to make them.

Not that,of course , I do know but often things seem to be very inexpensive as long as one is not in fact making them.

Exactly, and then there are a bit a of a catch-22 involved.

As they are expensive few buy them, and as few buy the they get expensive.

If anyone want cheaper battery grips they are usually available from 3rd party manufacturers.

 

[GeoffRG]

For Fuji X the grip costs about €500. The cost is about the same for full frame Sony.

First, it makes the camera heavier and bulkier.
Second, it usually adds a few buttons. Both my Sony and Fuji already have so many buttons, I don't even use all of them. Not to mention modern lenses have a programmable button or two (or three).

I would rather swap batteries every couple of hours instead of spending €500. There is no way these grips should cost more than €150 and I'm being generous here. It's a bunch of plastic and some electronic. Both very cheap to manufature.

Because the battery grip is more than just to hold batteries. They have extra controls for shutter, control of other functions and more. By all means, build one for 150.00 with all these features and get back to us. And....make it for my X-S1. I will give you 500.00 for it.

Considering I'm an engineer, I could make one for far less.

As a fellow engineer, no you couldn’t because you aren’t factoring in the cost of your time to design, develop and gain regulatory approval (you wouldn’t bother with that for a one off). 30 years ago, when I was dealing with customers, we used to charge £75 an hour for an engineer’s time so I guess we could easily double that today. I really don’t think you could produce a grip for £150, it would take you an hour to measure up before you consider the cost of raw materials.

I know that R&D is included in the cost, still find €500 overpriced. iPhone 14 Pro Max costs $450 to make. It sells for three times as much.
Plastic is basically free, electronics are very cheap as well. Battery grips are not rocket science, it doesn't require expensive materials to make one.

Let me assure you that the Nikon MB D-10 is NOT plastic but die cast alloy. Neither cheap to buy or to manufacture.Unfortunately the casing of a grip has to transfer the loads imposed by a heavy lens through both its attachment point to the camera and its tripod bush. Depending on the camera and lens it may require rather more expensive materials. You are seeing the grip as purely a battery compartment, it is a lot more than that.

Electronics are cheap only when manufactured in massive quantities, smaller quantities see a disproportionate increase in price.

An iPhone 14 Pro Max is not a camera grip! The phone is a very simple shape which is easy to produce and has minimal external connections, those it does have are mated manually. A grip is a complex shape, difficult to manufacture from alloy and with multiple external connections that are mated by alignment of the entire assembly.

 

[The Point and Shoot Pro]

@Nebell, By all means. go ahead. Remember, Fuji X-S1, make me a battery grip with full controls and I will buy it off you. Shutter, exposure, etc.

Let me know when you have it completed, tested etc and I will pay you 500 bucks for it.

--
Fronterra Photography Tours
One Lens, No Problem
The Point and Shoot Pro
The People of the Red and White stand with the people of the yellow and blue!

 

[tbcass]

For Fuji X the grip costs about €500. The cost is about the same for full frame Sony.

First, it makes the camera heavier and bulkier.
Second, it usually adds a few buttons. Both my Sony and Fuji already have so many buttons, I don't even use all of them. Not to mention modern lenses have a programmable button or two (or three).

I would rather swap batteries every couple of hours instead of spending €500. There is no way these grips should cost more than €150 and I'm being generous here. It's a bunch of plastic and some electronic. Both very cheap to manufature.

Because the battery grip is more than just to hold batteries. They have extra controls for shutter, control of other functions and more. By all means, build one for 150.00 with all these features and get back to us. And....make it for my X-S1. I will give you 500.00 for it.

Considering I'm an engineer, I could make one for far less.

I bought a third-party one for one of my cameras that was $80 vs $300 OEM. The 3rd party one was functionally identical and looked the same. It's now 9 years old and still works perfectly, showing that OEMs could be sold as cheaply.

The third party doesn’t have the R&D costs, they simply buy an OEM example, strip it down and use the parts to produce the tools. The OEM pays all the R&D. Yes they could possibly be sold more cheaply but the OEM probably wouldn’t last long if they were.

I could be wrong but it seems to me that RD costs on a battery grip would be pretty small and it's a one-time investment. The electronics in the grip are pretty basic compared to a camera. The circuitry necessary to make the grip functional is built into the camera body. Since the grip I bought for my Sony A99ii was functionally identical to the OEM I suspect that the 3rd party company had to pay Sony a royalty fee.

 

[The Point and Shoot Pro]

Oh, Btw, I will even let you plug it into the shutter plug on the side of the camera if need be.

 

[jxh]

But if you were going to build a factory, manufacture, market, distribute, sell, and support it you sure aren't going to price it at the build cost.

As an engineer, you would be throwing your labor in for free. I am sure that $500 engineering time (before even making the product) translates to very few hours.

 

[jxh]

As a fellow engineer, no you couldn’t because you aren’t factoring in the cost of your time to design, develop and gain regulatory approval (you wouldn’t bother with that for a one off). 30 years ago, when I was dealing with customers, we used to charge £75 an hour for an engineer’s time so I guess we could easily double that today. I really don’t think you could produce a grip for £150, it would take you an hour to measure up before you consider the cost of raw materials.

True. Local independent automobile repair shops in my area are between $100-140 per hour, before parts an materials.

 

[Tuonov2]

Plastic is basically free,

No, it's not, especially taking in to account the multiple $100,000's of dollars required to make the injection mold tooling.

I have dealt with many 'engineers' that think they do the hard part and making it is the easy bit...

BTW, I'm an engineer and also own a manufacturing company.

 

[GeoffRG]

Plastic is basically free,

No, it's not, especially taking in to account the multiple $100,000's of dollars required to make the injection mold tooling.

I have dealt with many 'engineers' that think they do the hard part and making it is the easy bit...

BTW, I'm an engineer and also own a manufacturing company.

I note you refrained from mentioning the cost of engineering plastics. Of course, the fact that some grips are die cast alloy (Nikon MB-D 10 and MB-D17 at least) rather negates the “plastic is basically free” argument.

 

[Doug J]

Plastic is basically free,

No, it's not, especially taking in to account the multiple $100,000's of dollars required to make the injection mold tooling.

I have dealt with many 'engineers' that think they do the hard part and making it is the easy bit...

So true. A bit of reality enters if the person is a manufacturing engineer, tasked with translating CAD drawings into shippable products.

BTW, I'm an engineer and also own a manufacturing company.

Cheers,
Doug

 

[FrancoD]

Plastic is basically free,

No, it's not, especially taking in to account the multiple $100,000's of dollars required to make the injection mold tooling.

I have dealt with many 'engineers' that think they do the hard part and making it is the easy bit...

BTW, I'm an engineer and also own a manufacturing company.

About 20 years ago we had a very popular tripod (it was rubbish really but did the job for the lighter cameras) that we sold for $69. Every specialist shop sold a lot of that and a couple of very similar ones.

The father of one of my wormates had 3 factories dealing with injection molding and making aluminium tubes and similar stuff.

We worked out, with his help, that we could make a tripod like that for less than $20 however to pay for the molds we would need to make about the same quantity as the total of all the tripods (every type...) sold in Australia per year.

(just in case someone wants to know why we don't make tripods in Australia apart from Miller . Tajke a look at Miller prices here : https://www.videopro.com.au/brands/miller/).

 

[Tuonov2]

Plastic is basically free,

No, it's not, especially taking in to account the multiple $100,000's of dollars required to make the injection mold tooling.

I have dealt with many 'engineers' that think they do the hard part and making it is the easy bit...

BTW, I'm an engineer and also own a manufacturing company.

I note you refrained from mentioning the cost of engineering plastics. Of course, the fact that some grips are die cast alloy (Nikon MB-D 10 and MB-D17 at least) rather negates the “plastic is basically free” argument.

Yeah, die casting magnesium is an expensive process as well.

I served an apprenticeship as a toolmaker before I got my engineering degree, then worked in research for 15 yrs. Met quite a few engineers like him whilst doing that job, had all the qualifications but absolutely no idea how to implement that knowledge.

 

[PhotoMac503]

Plastic is basically free,

No, it's not, especially taking in to account the multiple $100,000's of dollars required to make the injection mold tooling.

I have dealt with many 'engineers' that think they do the hard part and making it is the easy bit...

BTW, I'm an engineer and also own a manufacturing company.

Plastic is most definitely not free when you consider the harm to the planet - from extraction to disposal.

 

[PhotoMac503]

They're expensive because consumer are willing to pay those prices.

The cost to manufacture plays little role in pricing.

All manufacturers price goods at the highest point possible.

 

[Mark B.]

But if you were going to build a factory, manufacture, market, distribute, sell, and support it you sure aren't going to price it at the build cost.

As an engineer, you would be throwing your labor in for free. I am sure that $500 engineering time (before even making the product) translates to very few hours.

So you're going to produce these on an assembly line with a workforce of 1 person? Let us know how that works out for you. That doesn't cover any of the other OH costs either.

 

[jxh]

But if you were going to build a factory, manufacture, market, distribute, sell, and support it you sure aren't going to price it at the build cost.

As an engineer, you would be throwing your labor in for free. I am sure that $500 engineering time (before even making the product) translates to very few hours.

So you're going to produce these on an assembly line with a workforce of 1 person? Let us know how that works out for you. That doesn't cover any of the other OH costs either.

Of course not. I was responding to the person who said they could make one for under 500, I agree setup and production are very expensive.

 

[GeoffRG]

But if you were going to build a factory, manufacture, market, distribute, sell, and support it you sure aren't going to price it at the build cost.

As an engineer, you would be throwing your labor in for free. I am sure that $500 engineering time (before even making the product) translates to very few hours.

So you're going to produce these on an assembly line with a workforce of 1 person? Let us know how that works out for you. That doesn't cover any of the other OH costs either.

Of course not. I was responding to the person who said they could make one for under 500, I agree setup and production are very expensive.

Making one for under €500 would present a far greater challenge than producing 10,000 for under €500 each. However, setting up a production line would probably eat that €5,000,000 long before a single item had been produced.

 

[Paul Pasco]

For Fuji X the grip costs about €500. The cost is about the same for full frame Sony.

First, it makes the camera heavier and bulkier.
Second, it usually adds a few buttons. Both my Sony and Fuji already have so many buttons, I don't even use all of them. Not to mention modern lenses have a programmable button or two (or three).

I would rather swap batteries every couple of hours instead of spending €500. There is no way these grips should cost more than €150 and I'm being generous here. It's a bunch of plastic and some electronic. Both very cheap to manufature.

Because the battery grip is more than just to hold batteries. They have extra controls for shutter, control of other functions and more. By all means, build one for 150.00 with all these features and get back to us. And....make it for my X-S1. I will give you 500.00 for it.

Considering I'm an engineer, I could make one for far less.

I bought a third-party one for one of my cameras that was $80 vs $300 OEM. The 3rd party one was functionally identical and looked the same. It's now 9 years old and still works perfectly, showing that OEMs could be sold as cheaply.

 

[Mark B.]

But if you were going to build a factory, manufacture, market, distribute, sell, and support it you sure aren't going to price it at the build cost.

As an engineer, you would be throwing your labor in for free. I am sure that $500 engineering time (before even making the product) translates to very few hours.

So you're going to produce these on an assembly line with a workforce of 1 person? Let us know how that works out for you. That doesn't cover any of the other OH costs either.

Of course not. I was responding to the person who said they could make one for under 500, I agree setup and production are very expensive.

Ok