Vivitar BG-E8 Battery Grip (unsure if this goes here)...

[emphram]

Im unsure whether I should post this here or in off topic, because I don´t think this is an ML thing. I was filming the party of a baptism today, and I recently got the BG-E8 battery grip with two vivitar batteries. I decided to use the vivitar batteries first, and all was fine, however right after finishing a vital shot, the battery life indicator went from full to empty and the camera shut down almost immediately because the batteries had died. Now I then put in two other generic batteries, and I didn´t run them out. My question is, is this normal behavior with all batteries? Just an instant shutdown when the batteries die? Or is it because of the vivitar batteries? Does any one else have this battery grip and can tell me whether other batteries report their life when used in the grip? Is this because of ML?

Thanks in advance.

[ItsMeLenny]

I'd never put generic or imitation batteries in my camera. If you spend that much money on a DSLR it's probably worth it to buy canon batteries.
I think in the old ML instructions it said to only use official canon batteries when installing ML, I could be wrong on that note.

[ansius]

couple of things:

• ML reads only one of the two batteries form grip, tough it depends on the particular grip witch one, some of them just fake the presence of batteries
• ML has nothing to do when camera does switch off
• alternative batteries are fine, tough they performance really depends on manufacturer, most of them don't follow the discharge curves of original batteries, so camera might not react accordingly
• alternative batteries might not have same capacity or charge state, thus first don't put them right in the grip, but test them separately (I do that with ML silent pictures one every minute and then just count the pictures, and then I can compare results)

[emphram]

Hello folks, I can confirm that the culprit is the vivitar battery grip, and apparrently NOT the vivitar batteries. The battery grip tray only conducts 3 of the 4 battery contact pins and the grip probably constantly sends a battery full signal to the camera. If anyone knows of a battery grip for the T3i that you can confirm sends a battery reading, I would love to hear it, as I need to replace this one shortly.

Thanks in advance.

[vertigopix]

Hello,
For my 60D i have no problems with the Phottix BG-60D battery grip.

[emphram]

Unfortunately that battery grip doesn't do my any good as I am working with the T3i / 600D, not the 60D, but thanks for the suggestion anyways.