EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

[Canon Rumors]

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<p><strong>Tech Support

</strong>The story below has some good information in regards to the <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/847545-REG/Canon_5260A002_EOS_5D_Mark_III.html/bi/2466/kbid/3296" target="_blank">EOS 5D Mark III</a> and some third party batteries. Not all of them are created equal, and a few companies will support you in making sure you get batteries that are 100% compatible.</p>
<p><strong>Says Jon

</strong><em>When Canon upgraded the firmware of the 5D Mark III to 1.2.2/1.2.3 they killed some of the functionality of aftermarket batteries.</em></p>
<ul>
<li><em>Each time you put a battery in it required you to acknowledge “Communication with the battery is irregular” and the camera would not register it.</em></li>
</ul>
<p><em>My contact at Canon explained this was an effort to cut out counterfeit batteries claiming to be Canon batteries. </em><em>I explained to him the 3rd party batteries I used were clearly NOT labeled Canon and in addition contained a chip to allow it to communicate properly.  </em><em>My contact explained that Canon would probably never make a change backwards on this situation.</em></p>
<div id="attachment_15194" style="width: 585px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/5d3battery.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-15194" alt="Third party battery error messages." src="http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/5d3battery-575x215.jpg" width="575" height="215" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Third party battery error messages.</p></div>
<p><strong>Solution</strong>

Jon contacted the vendor that makes the batteries he likes: Maxtek/YoKool, they advised him that they now have a new battery that is 100% compatible to the new firmware. The new batteries he got directly from them do not have the communications issue and they will register with the camera.</p>
<p>Maxtek/YoKool only sells these batteries through Amazon. Maxtek/YoKool advises at least for the moment (until Amazon stocks reduce and have the new batteries) to make sure to order the batteries directly from them, not use the Amazon fulfilled link:  <strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0053WG2A2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0053WG2A2&linkCode=as2&tag=canorumo-20" target="_blank">See the correct batteries here</a></strong>.</p>
<p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span>r</strong></p>

 

[bchernicoff]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

"My contact at Canon explained this was an effort to cut out counterfeit batteries claiming to be Canon batteries."

If that is the case, then they have failed and should remove this test from the firmware. 3rd party manufacturers have already defeated the check making it only a hassle for owners who have older off-brand batteries. Of course they won't because that was their intent...trying to annoy people to only buy Canon batteries.

 

[Etienne]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

The article says don't buy from Amazon yet, but the link goes to Amazon. How do you ensure you get the new batteries?

 

[EchoLocation]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

who's downloading the new 7D firmware to see if the same kind of thing will happen to them?

 

[JonAustin]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

The article says don't buy from Amazon yet, but the link goes to Amazon. How do you ensure you get the new batteries?

If you click the link, you'll see that the only vendor selling (fulfilling) this battery on Amazon (as of 12/12/2013 at 9:00am CST) is YoKool. And, as Jon says in his review on the same page, "for right now (Dec 2013) you should order directly from YoKool via Amazon to get the updated batteries."

 

[captainkanji]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

The Canon 6D has been doing this since it was launched. The 6D charger doesn't charge any of my 3rd party batteries either. I can live with it since the batteries work fine once I select 'OK'. No way I'm paying $100 for a battery. That disturbs me that they would 'downgrade' the 5dIII this way.

 

[Etienne]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

The article says don't buy from Amazon yet, but the link goes to Amazon. How do you ensure you get the new batteries?

If you click the link, you'll see that the only vendor selling (fulfilling) this battery on Amazon (as of 12/12/2013 at 9:00am CST) is YoKool. And, as Jon says in his review on the same page, "for right now (Dec 2013) you should order directly from YoKool via Amazon to get the updated batteries."

Thanks!

 

[noncho]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

Don't try little tricks Canon - just make your batteries more affordable. LP-E6 is old enough, if you sell it for 25-30$ nobody will think about 3rd parties and your profit will be very good.
Sometimes I'm wondering what marketing specialists do they have...

 

[JPAZ]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

No offense or insult intended, but who is "Jon" on Amazon 's review and how reliable is this only single review? I would like to see others report success with this battery before I get any. And, of course, Canon may issue a firmware update in the future that with eliminate communication with these newer non-Canon batteries.

 

[WPJ]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

Don't try little tricks Canon - just make your batteries more affordable. LP-E6 is old enough, if you sell it for 25-30$ nobody will think about 3rd parties and your profit will be very good.
Sometimes I'm wondering what marketing specialists do they have...

I agree even if it was 30-40, it would force out the third parties, hell canon probably uses them half the time to make there oem batteries anyways.

I have no issues buying canon batteries, as long as they are affordable.

I got my first backup batter with an7D kit, it included a battery canon oem, a upgraded strap optech USA with canon logo and a lowepro bag aw180 I think.

I only bought it fir the battery, it was 50 on sale for the kit, the battery alone was 120. WTF...

 

[jthomson]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

I've got two batteries that worked fine before the firmware upgrade, they still work fine but you have to OK them. I also have two wasabi's that I purchased several months after the "upgrade" and they register normally.
Canon's playing a losing game. The third party vendors adjusted quickly to Canon's change.

The total cost of the four third party batteries was less than the cost for one genuine Canon.

 

[Brymills]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

They do have a valid point about protecting their customers from poor quality counterfeits. There's a story going round in cycling world this week about Specialized pulling up a bike shop called Cafe Roubaix, Roubaix being a name used by Specialized. One of the issues Specialized has had to deal with was when they had a bike returned after it snapped causing significant injuries to the rider, only to find that the bike itself was a counterfeit. Since then they've paid a law firm to track down counterfeiters - the Cafe Roubaix owner got caught up in the cross fire a bit. As long as Canon continues to allow you to use a 3rd party battery, after clicking 'OK' to continue I'm fine with it. They're warning you that your camera might get fried - but leaving it up to you to make the decision. I still use a 3rd party battery as a spare, but use the original Canon as my primary battery.

 

[awinphoto]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

From my experience, i have tested many 3rd party batteries on many cameras from the BP-511's to the latest 7D,5d3 batteries and most 3rd party batteries, while good for the first or second cycle, tend to lose memory quickly and it's charge capabilities are severely diminished. Some of the 3rd party BP-511's i tested on a full charge, after a few charge cycles only could support 50 or so photos with occasional chimping... The newer batteries were not as bad, but still i have not found batteries that hold a charge better than the OEM's so I have resigned myself to stick with OEM's... It does not surprise me a bit that canon made their changes to help discourage 3rd party batteries. Not saying what they did was right, but it's practical.

 

[Schruminator]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

In my 7D and 5DIII I've used a number of 3rd party batteries without any issues. I had one that refused to charge after a year or so-- but up until then it worked great-- and for something like $10 I can't complain.

One thing I have noticed on my 5DIII is that the camera pops up a message saying there are "communication errors" (or something similar) when I pop in my 3rd party battery and the battery meter is not functional. But later during the shoot I'll notice that the battery meter is working just fine and is accurately reading the battery. I'm not sure if it is just my camera or what, but it's a pretty minor annoyance I can deal with for saving $70 a battery.

 

[TrabimanUK]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

I have the same problem with some (older) 3rd party batteries on my 60D and 7D, though not necessarily all the time. I just accept that it can't read the battery level and take a sensible number of shots before changing them and checking their charge later on a charger. I use a Hahnel Twin V Pro charger, and that charges the 3rd party and original canon fine and gives a % charged indication.

Yes, it's inconvenient not knowing how much battery life you have, but it's not the end of the world.

 

[Skirball]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

They do have a valid point about protecting their customers from poor quality counterfeits. There's a story going round in cycling world this week about Specialized pulling up a bike shop called Cafe Roubaix, Roubaix being a name used by Specialized. One of the issues Specialized has had to deal with was when they had a bike returned after it snapped causing significant injuries to the rider, only to find that the bike itself was a counterfeit. Since then they've paid a law firm to track down counterfeiters - the Cafe Roubaix owner got caught up in the cross fire a bit. As long as Canon continues to allow you to use a 3rd party battery, after clicking 'OK' to continue I'm fine with it. They're warning you that your camera might get fried - but leaving it up to you to make the decision. I still use a 3rd party battery as a spare, but use the original Canon as my primary battery.

There’s a big difference between third party components that are labeled as such, and plain out selling counterfeit wares. Especially when your counterfeit is replacing an expensive process like carbon fiber manufacturing with a cheaper and inferior process, and when that has safety concerns. Lithium Ion battery technology isn’t exactly rocket science, Canon just puts an over-inflated premium on theirs to milk some more money out of consumers. Third party component manufacturing is a legitimate business model and helps keep manufactures honest (less dis-honest?). If the quality of the product manufacturers components truly are better, or the price is marginally more, people will buy them because it gives us a warm fuzzy feeling to see that name brand printed on the side. You only need these kind of tactics when you’re trying to force people to buy your overpriced product.

 

[Rat]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

No offense or insult intended, but who is "Jon" on Amazon 's review and how reliable is this only single review? I would like to see others report success with this battery before I get any.

I'm less inclined to be nice. I read this article as an advertisement for this particular seller and his particular batteries. I strongly doubt these are the only batteries to register correctly - Wasabi has been mentioned. Given that we just had another D&B T-shirt ad, I'm curious how much CR guy is making on this post. If nothing, it's terribly naive journalism.

 

[dgatwood]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

They do have a valid point about protecting their customers from poor quality counterfeits.

No, not really. Not like this. Their anti-counterfeiting technology is unreliable, and sporadically fails even for the Canon-branded batteries that come with the cameras. And it does nothing to deter other companies from building batteries, and does nothing to deter customers from buying them, because even if they have to replace all of their batteries, they would still pay less than they would for Canon-branded batteries. Besides, those batteries are eventually going to fail no matter what. As long as the users don't update their cameras' firmware too frequently, odds are good that they'll be ready for new batteries by the time they have to replace them anyway.

In other words, Canon's approach is completely ineffectual as a measure for preventing people from choosing third-party batteries. These "safety" checks do nothing but piss off Canon's paying customers—people who spent thousands of dollars on Canon camera gear. And why? Because they dared to save a few bucks on a disposable, consumable commodity.

The way Canon is playing the game is like Ford deciding to regulating car tire safety by having police officers randomly confiscate non-OEM tires, or legitimate tires if they can't clearly make out the certificate of authenticity printed on the side, leaving the drivers on the side of the road with a non-drivable car. Nobody sane would ever buy a Ford automobile if they did this, and lots of us are actively boycotting several printer manufacturers for such dirty tricks. So why are people so willing to tolerate this abuse from a camera manufacturer?

If Canon actually cared about protecting customers from poor quality counterfeits, they would simply license access to their platform. License access to their battery protocol and the chips required to support it. License access to their lens protocol. And so on. Mandate compliance checks by Canon prior to first sale as part of the licensing requirements. And make the licensing costs low enough per unit to ensure that third-party manufacturers are universally willing to to "go legit". That way, when Canon's paying customers buy a battery that works, they will have reasonable assurance that Canon actually vetted the product, that is safe, that it will not harm their camera, and that Canon promises not to deliberately break it. That's what competent electronics manufacturers do when they want to ensure product compatibility and reliability. By contrast, deliberately sabotaging people's ability to use their cameras with a particular battery is dirty, it's sleazy, and whatever Canon exec approved it should be thrown out on his or her @$$.

Just saying.

 

[airfxca]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

i have not heard of anyone that have damaged their 5dmk2 with third party batteries

but with my experience... when i was filming with my 5dmk2 i would not use third party batteries as their higher voltage would HEAT up the camera much faster.
and on my 60D i'm experiencing slower FPS in continuous shooting mode with third party batteries.

however i do not know if these issues would affect the the newer cameras


PS. sony NEX camera have no drop in FPS and heat issues when used with third party batteries, they have the same voltage rating as sony batteries

 

[Rockets95]

Re: EOS 5D Mark III & Third Party Batteries

The third party manufacturer's reverse engineer their stuff to work with Canon's equipment. IMO, it's not up to Canon keep the third party guys happy. I've got nothing someone trying to save a few dollars, but you're taking a chance.