Camera Labs

Is it best to fork out the extra £10 on an official Nikon EN-EL9 spare battery for £39.00 or is it ok to use a Hahnel HL-EL9 which is priced at £29.99. What do Nikon owners here use? Official Nikon spare batteries or 'clone' branded ones such as that offered by Hahnel?

All I know is that I should really aquire a spare battery particularly in light of soon I will have my hands on a VR Nikor lense. Apparently the VRII feature adds extra drain on the battery.

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GEAR: Nikon D40 | AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II | AF-S VRII Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED | AF-S VRII Nikkor 105 f/2.8G IF-ED micro | SB-400 Speedlight | Lowepro Slingshot 200 AW | Manfrotto 676B monopod

A secnd battery is never wrong. In my opinion, I'd go fo rthe Nikon bat. That gives you some peace of mind...
that is easily worth the extra 10 quid

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

I didn't get an official one. I wont be using it heaps and heaps. Just on the odd occasion when I'm away from power and need battery. Was only about $35NZD and the official Nikon was about $130NZD.

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Nikon D80 | 18-135mm Kit Lens | 50mm f/1.8 | 4GB 150x Card | SB-600
http://flickr.com/photos/antmanisfubar

I guess this is kind of like bying third party lenses: They are fine, they are cheaper (or much cheaper) and in most cases they surely get the job done pretty well; but usually, they're also "just" second best in both build and optical quality when compared to their equivalent Nikkor counterparts.

The same applies to batteries, if you want "the real thing" you'll have to pay a little more, as Tombomba2 says, it will give you peace of mind and probably a bit better quality, if you're on a budget, then there must be surely pretty good third party batteries out there that will do the trick for less money.

Bye

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Nikon D90 | AF-S 18-200 VR II | AF-S 35mm f/1.8 | Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 | SB-600 | Gorillapod + Manfrotto 484RC2

Just avoid pirate copies of official batteries. Someone on a certain other photography site posted pictures of a pirated battery and to all intents and purposes it looked like the real thing.

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"Where does the lens end and the camera begin?..."
Sony Alpha DSLR-A100
DT 18-70 mm F3.5-5.6 (Kit)