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Spare battery - recommendations?


Want-a-leica

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As with so much in life it does vary quite a bit.

 

I bought a £14 battery from 7dayshop.com for my old Nikon D2X and it outshone the original hyper expensive Nikon item and I'd say gave me 1/3 better battery life. Same for a similar replacement Olympus E series battery from them. I've found their batteries to be excellent overall, shame they don't do a Leica M8/9 battery.

 

Then I've had other after market batteries from other sources and they have been rubbish. You pay your money and take your chances with it at the end of the day. The Leica battery is expensive but a wise purchase obviously.

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I need a second battery for my M8 and I'm not buying a €100 Leica one, I'm trying out a €10 version first. Maybe I'm wrong but I doubt that Leica are manufacturing the actual batteries themselves and honestly I doubt any third party battery could be significantly worse at holding a charge than the genuine Leica battery I have at the moment. :rolleyes:

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I'm sorry if this may upset anyone. But all of this talk of saving money on batteries and memory cards reminds me of the people who would buy an expensive film camera with top line lenses, and then use a budget mail-order processor because they gave you a free film. If you want to get the best results from your camera, then you need to use the best consumables.

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I disagree Nicole, I've ordered a cheap battery, it's not going to make my photos any worse. It's not the same as using cheap film. If its a useless battery I'll have to buy another Leica one but if it's ok I get to spend the €100 I've saved on quality prints instead and get to enjoy some of the best results from my camera.

 

If I really needed the guaranteed up-time I'd definitely invest a set of Leica spares for the peace of mind required but I just shoot for fun and if my battery dies I just put the camera back in my pocket and enjoy my day, it's no different to running out of film with any of my analogue cameras.

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I disagree Nicole, I've ordered a cheap battery, it's not going to make my photos any worse. It's not the same as using cheap film. If its a useless battery I'll have to buy another Leica one but if it's ok I get to spend the €100 I've saved on quality prints instead and get to enjoy some of the best results from my camera.

 

If I really needed the guaranteed up-time I'd definitely invest a set of Leica spares for the peace of mind required but I just shoot for fun and if my battery dies I just put the camera back in my pocket and enjoy my day, it's no different to running out of film with any of my analogue cameras.

 

I didn't pay more than 90 EUR/pc for the 4 original Leica batteries, I use.

How do you save 100 EUR on one and get a generic battery?

 

You are buying to high ;-)

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I disagree Nicole, I've ordered a cheap battery, it's not going to make my photos any worse. It's not the same as using cheap film. If its a useless battery I'll have to buy another Leica one but if it's ok I get to spend the €100 I've saved on quality prints instead and get to enjoy some of the best results from my camera.

 

If I really needed the guaranteed up-time I'd definitely invest a set of Leica spares for the peace of mind required but I just shoot for fun and if my battery dies I just put the camera back in my pocket and enjoy my day, it's no different to running out of film with any of my analogue cameras.

 

It may not make your pictures worse, but could well end up being the cause of getting no pictures at all due to irratic charge levels and/or sudden death syndrome. You pays your money, you takes your risk. If you have paid £2k plus for a used camera or £4k plus for a new one; why risk failure/disappointment for the sake of £90?

 

Crazy.

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Don't buy cheap battery for your M8. Better be safe than sorry.

 

I bought it too, but don't use it since it could not show correct battery level on camera (even it showed as fully charged on the charger).

 

I bought a third leica bat. when I bought my M9 but I never use it because they don't run empty in one day and I can charge the other when I use the first. So you don't need so many bat. ergo, not expensive.

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I bought a third party battery from a reliable vendor; one of the biggest and best.

It failed either to charge completely or show a complete charge when installed in the M8.

I read somewhere that the Leica battery has some proprietary characteristic that matches the camera firmware. In any case I was out not a lot of money. I bought the Leica brand as a second battery and never looked back. My suggestion; As overpriced as the Leica battery is, consider what you paid for the camera and take the plunge. Better to be safe than sorry when out on a shoot. Another suggestion: turn off the review (play) function and use it only when you need to. That way your battery will probably last all day without replacement.

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Well I got my €10 battery and checked it out and it seems fine, I'm just going to keep it in the bag with the M8 as a backup. I've run out of juice a couple of times but at least I've got a spare now. I do see the wisdom in keeping the genuine Leica battery as the main one in use though, I'll probably get another 'real' one when this one has run it's course.

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