Battery Grips-The Good, Bad, and the Ugly

I posted last week how my battery grip held my camera hostage for a whole morning (I was not able to remove it from the camera). I spent hours and I can still feel the pain in my fingers trying to remove the battery grip. Finally, I had to take my cordless drill and perform open camera surgery. This is something that most photographers would not attempt. If you use your camera as much as I do and are adding a battery grip, buy the (in my case) Nikon! It seems that some loose screws got in the way on the Vello battery grip and caused one of the gears to bind on the thumb knob (se below).

The problem with all battery grips is that they cannot be taken apart when they are on the camera. Now that I have one whole day in with my new Nikon I can say it is worth every penny!

The Nikon is definitely has a higher quality feel. The knobs for removal are much easier to turn than on the Vello. It is also slightly smaller. I also use back-button focusing and on the Nikon grip I do not loose focusing on the second shutter like I did on the Vello. Overall, good so far…