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| 03-07-2014, 11:45 PM | #242 |
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I just got the news from Ebay: the super cheap K-7/K-5 Alpha Digital battery grip has been shipped. It is the cheap variant with the plastic pins, nevertheless i had to pay it a small fortune... € 29.99 shipment included!  I've used with full satisfaction an equally cheap battery grip for my K200D. It is a camera which is quite picky about batteries: i have seen rechargeable AA batteries, and even brand name conventional alkalines, causing strange problems. Lithium batteries are safe, but are also expensive and not easy to find. I purchased two sets of Eneloop, for the camera and the grip, and all poblems were gone! With that in mind, the first thing i've done after buying an almost new K-5 II, was to buy a battery grip on Ebay. I purchased a couple of D-Li90 batteries too (one is a 1600mA, the other a 2000 mA, the original Pentax is 1860 mA), but i guess i will often use the grip with AA batteries. I am going to leave for a long journey in South East Asia, and i want to be able to shoot with readily available batteries, if there is no electricity or the charger goes bust. I hope the new super-cheap battery grip will serve my K-5 II as well, as the old one has served the K200. As long as the buttons don't fall down, or get stuck, i don't see any other source of major problems. Or, at least, nothing that a little of "dry" contact cleaner can't cure... I found this thread after the purchase, so i didn't pay attention to which "type" of grip i was going to buy. I simply went for the cheapest. After reading a good number of posts, what impressed me the most were not the technicalities, but the words used by a few advocates of the "always buy Pentax" school. I thought that words like "steal", "rip-off", "crime", and other amenities, would never find their way in such a discussion. I was wrong, there is always the improvised lawyer who repeats, parrot-like, badly digested concepts, like those spread by corporate propaganda. A non-Pentax grip is no different from the thousands of third-party car spare parts which are sold in any corner of the world. The cheap grips are not even identical, but marginally different, while some spare parts, even complicate and expensive ones, are often IDENTICAL, because made by the SAME company in the same plant. Just a different sticker, that's all. If the automotive industries are not going to court, it's because it's not feasible. Please, leave the word "crime" where it belongs. An example: the criminal behavior of two giant pharmaceutical multinationals who badmouthed an equivalent product, five time cheaper, spreading false allegations. The italian regulation body got hooked, and the equivalent product banned from the public system. Fortunately the two companies got the biggest fine to date, from the italian antitrust... the reason they got screwed is just because they were so sluggish to exchange emails where they explained in details their plan!  There are many highly ethical things we can do, voting with our wallet. I don't think that buying a Pentax branded grip is one of them, i am sorry.... cheers P Last edited by cyberjunkie; 03-07-2014 at 11:55 PM. | |
| 05-10-2014, 10:08 PM | #243 |
 Originally posted by sharepointalex  Looking to get one of these myself for my spare body (K-5), I have the genuine one for my K-3 and just can't justify the cost for another genuine one! I've read all 16 pages and trawled ebay but am struggling to find the definitive 3rd party one to go for. From what I've read I want to get grip type 2, so thinking this one (DSTE Battery Grip for Pentax K 7 K 5 D BG4 2 x D LI90 | eBay). Any other suggestions? There are absolutely tons on ebay and I want to make certain it's type 2. Cheers Alex ---------- Post added 03-04-14 at 01:07 AM ---------- Is this type 2? The seller is in the UK which is much better for me B020 Battery grip for PENTAX K-7 K7 D-SLR D-BG4 DBG4 | eBay ---------- Post added 03-04-14 at 01:08 AM ---------- Finally i've just spotted there is an Ex-Pro one, is that type 2? Ex-ProŽ Power Grip Pentax D-BG4 BG-4 D-Li90 Series for Pentax K7 K-7 | eBay not for me: i did this once, i lost my money, and i'm not rich enough to buy cheap stuff anymore! ;-) good luck though: if you're not going to use your grip under bad weather conditions (rain, dust etc) it may serve you very well, as did mine ... until that day @ the beach and getting wet with sea water! cheers ---------- Post added 05-10-2014 at 10:32 PM ---------- Originally posted by cyberjunkie I just got the news from Ebay: the super cheap K-7/K-5 Alpha Digital battery grip has been shipped. It is the cheap variant with the plastic pins, nevertheless i had to pay it a small fortune... € 29.99 shipment included! I've used with full satisfaction an equally cheap battery grip for my K200D. It is a camera which is quite picky about batteries: i have seen rechargeable AA batteries, and even brand name conventional alkalines, causing strange problems. Lithium batteries are safe, but are also expensive and not easy to find. I purchased two sets of Eneloop, for the camera and the grip, and all poblems were gone! With that in mind, the first thing i've done after buying an almost new K-5 II, was to buy a battery grip on Ebay. I purchased a couple of D-Li90 batteries too (one is a 1600mA, the other a 2000 mA, the original Pentax is 1860 mA), but i guess i will often use the grip with AA batteries. I am going to leave for a long journey in South East Asia, and i want to be able to shoot with readily available batteries, if there is no electricity or the charger goes bust. I hope the new super-cheap battery grip will serve my K-5 II as well, as the old one has served the K200. As long as the buttons don't fall down, or get stuck, i don't see any other source of major problems. Or, at least, nothing that a little of "dry" contact cleaner can't cure... I found this thread after the purchase, so i didn't pay attention to which "type" of grip i was going to buy. I simply went for the cheapest. After reading a good number of posts, what impressed me the most were not the technicalities, but the words used by a few advocates of the "always buy Pentax" school. I thought that words like "steal", "rip-off", "crime", and other amenities, would never find their way in such a discussion. I was wrong, there is always the improvised lawyer who repeats, parrot-like, badly digested concepts, like those spread by corporate propaganda. A non-Pentax grip is no different from the thousands of third-party car spare parts which are sold in any corner of the world. The cheap grips are not even identical, but marginally different, while some spare parts, even complicate and expensive ones, are often IDENTICAL, because made by the SAME company in the same plant. Just a different sticker, that's all. If the automotive industries are not going to court, it's because it's not feasible. Please, leave the word "crime" where it belongs. An example: the criminal behavior of two giant pharmaceutical multinationals who badmouthed an equivalent product, five time cheaper, spreading false allegations. The italian regulation body got hooked, and the equivalent product banned from the public system. Fortunately the two companies got the biggest fine to date, from the italian antitrust... the reason they got screwed is just because they were so sluggish to exchange emails where they explained in details their plan! There are many highly ethical things we can do, voting with our wallet. I don't think that buying a Pentax branded grip is one of them, i am sorry.... cheers P have had four of them since 2010, and use them in my K-x works like a charm indeed even though they can no longer be fully charged since sometime last year, they still work relatively fine i have used rechargeable batts in the past, they barely last longer than two years ... but you're probably very wrong about the 3rd party camera grips being as good as the original that's what i thought too before buying a cheap grip for my K-5/K-7 cameras even though i had read some negative comments about them already! (and your comparisons with the automotive or pharmaceutical industries requires some revisions i'm sure!) if you haven't read my post here, i suggest you read it, or read it again even if you have already: mine went wrong after becoming wet with sea water, the very same water that also wet my original Pentax grip as well as both my K-5 and K-7 cameras! both cameras and the original Pentax grip are still working quite fine, just as they did before (and they have been exposed to water and rain before and after that incident many times btw!) but the 3rd party grip is but a piece of junk now! not even good for parts i might add ... and it was exposed to water only once! (and i hear you're going on a trip to SE Asia, are you? isn't that a mostly humid place with Monsoon rains and Tsunamis and things?) ;-) of course if you're so rich as to go ahead and try these 3rd party products as many times as you like, then go ahead and try your luck! but you'll certainly end up having paid ten times the amount for the original Pentax grip and getting nowhere in the end! as for me, i learned my lesson once more in life: i'm not rich enough to buy cheap stuff really! good luck and have a nice trip my friend c u around Last edited by penties rider; 05-10-2014 at 10:29 PM. Reason: wrong post! | |
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Post #8 by LeDave 
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