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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-10-2014, 10:08 PM
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you have seen my post already then!
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 ----------
Eneloop is a great battery!
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
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
11-11-2013, 03:51 AM
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hi swingninja
if you're worried about scratches that might damage the printed texts on these grips, there is a cheap and easy solution i just learned from someone on these pages (or elsewhere was it?) and it's proved to be very helpful indeed:
purchase a small bottle of 'clear nail polish' (about a couple of bucks or less if you go to a dollar store perhaps) which is the type ladies normally use to protect their nails and perhaps give it a shine too, but no color, hence the "clear" label.
carefully clean up the grip from any probable dirt and grease on it and make sure it's absolutely dry, and then gently apply a very little and thin layer of that nail polish (lacquer, varnish, whatever, using its own small brush) on the printed text.
i have done this on a cheap 3rd party battery grip i own and it's stayed there for more than two years without any need to repeat! :)
it won't look perfect of course, but it does the job fine enough.
(i have also made another good use of the same nail polish: 'repairing' the loose lock/dent of the plastic hood that comes with the AL 18~55mm Pentax ED WR lens, and it's worked great there too!) ;-)
however, you may want to know about the low-cost grip itself:
although fine in looks and things as well as in overall performance, it proved not to be a durable one unfortunately! :(
maybe i bought the worst one ($50, no brand name, no labels of any kind) but the build and everything about it seemed really fine enough at first and it is even one of those that sound like to be of the better 3rd party models.
anyway, long story short, the first thing that went wrong with this grip was its lock mechanism.
it works fine even after its crank broke quite soon (maybe in less than a year of use) but in order to use it, now i have to get hold of a small pair of tweezers i carry in my camera bag, which is very clumsy indeed!
(i do also have an original Pentax BG-4 grip that has worked for even one year longer than this one and under similar work pressure but it's still perfectly fine, although i do have worries about this item's locking crank too, as it seems of rather fragile build after all!)
the other nasty thing that also happened was that i was taking photos in a beach and got stuck with ocean waves somehow, which got to both my cameras (K-5 and K-7) and both of the grips inside the camera bag on my shoulder.
no damage to the two splash-proof cameras (except for the usual sand that got all over them and i had to clean them up later of course) and nothing wrong with the original Pentax grip either, but the 3rd party grip was damaged so badly it not only stopped working altogether, but its ISO button also came off! :( (see attached photos please)
its AE-L button also doesn't work as before: its push-push 'feel' no longer there ...
conclusion:
i don't say it's wrong to buy these 3rd party grips and i'm sure they should be quite fine as long as you don't get too adventurous with your photography, but if you're into risking certain things and do a lot of outdoor photography (as i do) then i'd say you'd better pay the extra costs and get a genuine Pentax battery grip to make sure things are more on the safe side. (or find a truly reliable 3rd party at a lower price, although none of them appear to be of tough build, nor are they splash proof as is the original one as far as i know.)
also, most probably the price for the BG-4 grip is going to drop in the near future (if it's not already) since the new K-3 camera uses a different type of grip and sales of the older cameras and grips will certainly be much lower now ...
hope this helps and good luck!
ps > you may also notice the application of the mentioned clear nail polish on the printed text in the photos btw.
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