Digital camera batteries
 

The battery on my Sony DSC-T7 has degraded to the point where it can't really hold a charge for more than a few dozen pictures. It was a demo unit, so it's not much of a surprise that the battery wasn't in the best shape, but the lack of charge time makes it a bit useless.

I'm looking for a replacement battery (Sony NP-FE1), but the actual Sony InfoLithium cell costs at least $45-$60. A Targus-branded battery costs less than half of what the Sony battery costs, and compatiable batteries start at about $10.00 shipped on eBay.

I'd obviously like to buy the much cheaper off-brand batteries, but I'm worried about their quality. Do you guys think that the Targus or generic batteries would work as well as a Sony-brand one?

Digital cameras eat up batteries like crazy. Go for quality or else you'll spend more time trying to get new batteries (or recharging old ones) than trying to take pictures.
Joseph

Definitely check around on eBay for the Sony brand battery.

I was looking around for a spare battery for my Canon Rebel, and retail stores sold them for $80 where eBay had the same thing for half that much. I bought it off eBay, to say the least.

Proprietary batteries are such trash, sorry you're stuck with one ;_;

So, one of the local camera stores sells Promaster-branded batteries for $25.00, which is quite a bit cheaper than the Sony one, and isn't built out of sellotape and prayers like the cheapest ones on eBay are. Would there be any drawbacks to using one?

Eh. At least the proprietary batteries are easy to find (for now)...it was a pain to find a silver battery for my Canon A1.

The Canonet GIII is a sweet little camera, BTW. <3

No, i just meant proprietary ones compared to aa ones suck :(

And yeah, i just had to get a mercury replacemt battery for my ql17. At least it will last years though =p

pom: In some cases I agree with you, in others I don't. I get over 1100 shots, probably about half with flash, out of the EN-EL3a (Proprietary) in my Nikon D50. Only having to recharge once every few months is a fantastic thing.

I think for dslr's then the bigger prop batteries make more sense then using a lot of AAs that would just drain quickly, but all the smaller p&s ones that use the little li-ion batteries are kind of wasteful, especially if they die while you're out and you can't purchase a replacement.

But yeah, for stuff like a D50 where you can get 800+ shots out of your battery then aas aren't better =p