Hello,

I have had my Rebel XT for about 9 months.

I am getting better and finally starting to understand what I am doing just a little bit.

My question concerns the aftermarket accessories vs original canon.

I have purchased a Phoenix external flash,phoenix battery pack, off brand batteries,remote controls,mercury macro and other stuff..

All of these items were purchased for 20 to 30 percent of what canon wants for theirs and I am satisfied with the performance of all of this equipment.

I have a 18/55 canon kit lens and a 70-300 Sigma lens that I use with this stuff.



Me stating that I am satisifed is probably out of ignorance and I wanted some input as to whether I am cheating my overall fun and whether the OEM equipment would yield a better experience.
Thanks

Mike

This is a great question, and you will probably get alot of different oppinions!:D

Here is mine. Canon always works best with Canon equipment. You may be able to get away with an aftermarker flash but I would always buy Canon Lenses. Canon lenses fit better than Sigma. Their higher end lenses will always communicate better with the cameras computer. I would spend more on a lens than the actual camera body itself.

it really depends on the type of shooter you are. I buy some canon stuff, some sigma/tamron, and some no-name stuff. But then again, i am a college kid on a budget. but if you don't feel like paying a lot for products, and would rather pay a third of the cost for a product that performs at about 3/4 of the performance, then go right ahead. I personally love my sigma 24-70mm f/2.8, and it cost me $300 (that's 1/3 of the price of canon's). Sure, the focusing motor isn't silent and quite as fast, and it may be a tiny bit softer wide open, but stopped down this thing is incredible, and it's still very fast focusing, it just seems slower because you can hear the motor working.

There is a lot to consider here, but #1 is SAFETY. You should NEVER buy and use non-Canon batteries! Why? They can explode or melt causing a fire. I personally know of three photogs that this has happened to. They tried to save $60 and it ended up costing them thousands instead. One guy threw his battery on the charger and went out for a "quick" 1 mile run and returned home to find the fire department putting a fire out in his bedroom. The aftermarket battery pack meltedcatching the nightstand on fire, then the bed, then the whole room. Saving a few bucks isn't worth it! There are reall issues with aftermarket Canon 1D and 20D type battery packs as they do not have all the cuircutry of the official battery packs.
The other two photogs both had their batteries explode. One of those batteries was being charged the first time when it went boom. In both cases the rooms the batteries were in were heavily damaged from the resulting fires.

Now on to other items:
Lenses: Aftermarket lenses are not suggested by Canon techs. Simply put the signal voltages and currents are different. Yeah, they may work OK, but over time it will damage the cameras AF curcuits. I learned this one the hard way, and it cost just under $300 to repair the 1D, not to mention 12 weeks without the camera.
Flash: they are OK, but again won't work the same way the Canon flash will.

JS

Having had trouble with the exposure system on my 20D with a Canon 420EX, I can just imagine what it may have been like with an off brand flash. My problem was one of software in the camera itself (fixed now). Canon was very quick about this and it was still under warranty. Had I been using off brand equipment with the camera, I'm not so sure if Canon would have even accepted it back for a fix. Perhaps it may have even voided the warranty. I think, for me, using Canon flashes with their cameras is the best idea. They communcate well and E-TTL is enabled. I have used Sigma lenses in the past and have had no problems with my AF system resulting from them. My very old A2 still focuses just fine and for a long time now it has lived with a Sigma lens permanently attached. Perhaps the newer circuitry is different, but I will still use my Sigma lenses with no qualms. I definitely agree with the battery thing. Oddly enough, I also had a friend about burn his house down using a cheap replacement battery for his laptop.

Bottom line: if you can at all afford it, stick to brand name stuff whenever possible. And don't use crap batteries.

There is a lot to consider here, but #1 is SAFETY. You should NEVER buy and use non-Canon batteries! Why? They can explode or melt causing a fire. I personally know of three photogs that this has happened to. They tried to save $60 and it ended up costing them thousands instead. One guy threw his battery on the charger and went out for a "quick" 1 mile run and returned home to find the fire department putting a fire out in his bedroom. The aftermarket battery pack meltedcatching the nightstand on fire, then the bed, then the whole room. Saving a few bucks isn't worth it! There are reall issues with aftermarket Canon 1D and 20D type battery packs as they do not have all the cuircutry of the official battery packs.
The other two photogs both had their batteries explode. One of those batteries was being charged the first time when it went boom. In both cases the rooms the batteries were in were heavily damaged from the resulting fires.
JS

Well, its not that you have to stick with Canon batteries. I have an off-brand battery for one of my cameras and it works just as well. By the way, I bought my off-brand battery from Wal-mart. A good deal cheaper than Canon but not bottom of the barrel cheap.

The key here is consistency. Canon batteries will be much more reliable and consistent out of the box, troubles are unlikely. With third party batteries, the QC is often much sloppier. Sometimes you get good ones, sometimes you get bad ones. Fires are highly unusual. But if the camera is heating up more than normal, I'd yank the battery before a fire starts.

Sorry double posted somehow.

I haven't had any battery problems.

Sony has set more house fires with laptop batteries than anyone else so Although I will say that Canon's Quality Assurance is probably better than a Generic battery they are all probably being made by 6 year old chinese girls in a sweat shop.

The off brand flash is ETLL and ETLL II compatible and as far as I know is working fine.


The issue with the software was Canons problem and I agree that if you had been having a problem with an offbrand flash they probably would not have helped you at all even though it was their problem.

I was really wanting to hear from someone that had used both the OEM and off brand equipment like the flash and hoping they could explain some major differences to justify a price that is 3X what I paid for the Phoenix flash.

I understand the cheaper glass totally but at my skill level I am more than happy with the Sigma lens.

A car manufacturer will tell you that only factory parts should be used on your automobile for optimum performance. How many of you actually buy all your parts at a Dealership after the car is out of warranty?



Mike

Mike and Micheal,

#1: the batteries ARE an issue, so much so that when at the Brickyard 400 this past August the Canon techs were removing ALL non-Canon batteries from any camera that came in with them and telling those people to get rid of them ASAP.....they are not safe at all. As for the comment about 6 year old Chinese girls making Canon batteries, no, they are made in Japan and are well constructed. In fact there is a thread in one of the forums where you can see the inside of one of my 1D batteries. The photos show a thyristor that is NOT installed in the aftermarket batteries. That little device is thermally controlled and will act as a fuse if the pack gets too hot during charging. That thread by the way is about this battery issue. It doesn't matter if you haven't had a problem yet, the fact is these catch fire and/or explode because they are not made with the safety device that Canon uses, and it's a whole lot cheaper to replace the battery than your home and possesions.
Check Canon's site, if I remember right they have warnings on there about aftermarket batteries.
WaL Mart??????? Sheesh, I wouldn't buy ANYTHING there, let alone a camera battery! The Wal Mart batteries btw ARE made in China, and they are CHEAP.

BTW, as for the Canon batteries and their quality. I abuse my gear shooting sports, I have my batteries so many times, yet the first battery I bought way back in 2001 is STILL working and is acting the same way it did new. I get the same number of shots out of it 6 years later that I did new, and the case is broken. Aftermarket batteries may last two to three years at the most with half the abuse this one has seen.

#2: I don't know anything about the Phoenix flash, I do however use the Sunpack 433D flash on my old cameras (1D and 300D) and it works fine except it has no auto features, it's all manual as the signals don't cooperate in auto as they are supposed to. I'd imagine the Phoenix is going to be the same, they claim it will work but in actual use it has to be set manually to get correct exposure.
Personally, I'd go with the Canon flash, one because it's made specifically for the Canon cameras, not a customized lets hope it works deal. Another reason i prefer the Canon flash is I get a lot more battery life out of a set of batteries, and the 580EX gets 2-3 times the flashes than the 430. I'm not buying batteries everytime I go out to shoot, and can shoot 4 or 5 football games with one set of batteries, where the 433D and 430 were lucky to get through one or two games. Useing the Fill Flash mode on the 580EX I get over 700 fires out of a set of batteries.

JS

Look, I have used non-Canon batteries without problems. Bought at the same time as the cameras, they last just as long and both, Canon and non-Canon, are still going strong.

Yes, off brand is more likely to cause problems. This is especailly true if you buy them off of eBay for the lowest price possible. I do have friends whose off-brand batteries have died early. None have caused fires or fried the electronics.

If you shop carefully, off-brand batteries can be just as good. Would you only use Duracell or Energizer rather than drug store AAs because of reliability concerns? As someone else stated, Sony batteries have created lots of problems including flaming fires. Remember the Apple Mac 5300 laptops that were nicknamed the Laptop Infernos? A name brand is no guarantee of quality.

As for other equipment, such as flash and CF cards, I do stick with major barnds. Why? Who knows. But even there, major brand Lexar is garbage. You just never know. To each his own, the choice is there.

I have been using a 3rd part battery for my 1d for about a year now and it holds a much longer charge than my canon one does, but the canon's also been used a bit. Memory cards, I just buy Sandisk Ultra II's, nothin else. I figure I haven't had a problem and don't feel the need for more speed, so why change it? It really all depends. there are millions of people out there using 3rd party batteries and accessories, and nothing is going wrong. there are also probably lots and lots of people out there using canon or nikon stuff and had things go wrong with them. Nothing's a guarantee in the product world.