[gritstone]

Looking for a second/spare battery for my canon camcorder...
Manual says use only genuine Canon batteries.

Well, genuine Canon batteries are expensive.
I can find loads of 'compatible' batteries for a fraction of the price...But I note a warning on the Canon website about using 'counterfeit batteries'.

Does everyone pay the extortionate price for genuine batteries, or buy compatibles and save the money?

[senu]

Originally Posted by gritstone

Looking for a second/spare battery for my canon camcorder...
Manual says use only genuine Canon batteries.

Well, genuine Canon batteries are expensive.
I can find loads of 'compatible' batteries for a fraction of the price...But I note a warning on the Canon website about using 'counterfeit batteries'.

Seriously.. what do you expect them to say?. While they may say this to minimise any warrantee issues caused by dodgy compatibles, It is just as likely that Canons "originals" themselves are outsourced to good quality third party manufacturers using Canons specifications

Originally Posted by gritstone

Does everyone pay the extortionate price for genuine batteries,

No!!

....or buy compatibles and save the money?

Absolutely

Sony does use technology to "block out" 3rd party batteries by making their camcorders recognise them as non Sony and refuse to work to work with them

Thankfully ( for you ) Canon does not
Ansmaan, Hahnel amongst others are makers of affordable high quality third party batteries Ive used with the Canon DSLRs ( some of which are similar to those used by camcorders) without any problems.

In short , Although "originals" are a bit of a rip off I would Buy third party by all means but be aware some of them are not as good value as they seem if they don't prove fit for purpose

[gritstone]

Thanks Senu, I agree with everything you say.

Sony... well I didn't know about that battery issue, so Sony are permanently off my shopping list for 'sharp practice' in my book.

I should make a distinction between 3rd party compatible batteries (which appear to be fine) and counterfeit Canon batteries, that is batteries which appear to be made by Canon, but are not.

The Canon website specifically comments about this and asks people to report them if found:
http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Prod..._batteries.asp