[Leica] Bad luck with Hong Kong battery

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

I've used three different sources. I know the first one I used isn't 
on ebay anymore because I went to a different one after he was gone. 
The batteries he had supplied came with two different labels, so the 
stuff he was selling probably didn't all have the same provenance. My 
older email files got a bit mangled recently so while I do have email 
going back to the early 90's it's more work to get at, and I can't do 
it here right now.

At this point I would hate to recommend any one source as I think 
they do change suppliers, but due to the extreme price differential 
between OEM and third party Leica M batteries, I wouldn't hesitate to 
try different suppliers with reasonable ebay ratings. 5 tries with 2 
batteries each will still cost you less than one OEM battery, unless 
you can get them a lot cheaper there.


At 5:22 PM -0500 5/25/11, George Lottermoser wrote:
>On May 25, 2011, at 5:02 PM, Henning Wulff wrote:
>
>>  For the Leicas, I started buying third party batteries right after 
>>my local store told me that the OEM batteries were $150. Now they 
>>are pushing $200. I bought some batteries from Hong Kong, and by 
>>now have bought about 20, which cost me in total less than $300 
>>with shipping. Of those batteries, 2 have failed and 2 more have 
>>low capacity. The others are OK and have the same capacity as the 
>>OEM batteries. Of the total of 5 OEM Leica batteries I got 
>>(bought), one went with one of the M8's I sold, 1 died and 3 are 
>>still OK, but have no higher capacity than the third party 
>>batteries. As none of the batteries for the Leicas  have a great 
>>capacity and as I generally leave the camera on when I'm carrying 
>>it, I go through batteries quickly and carry a number. No problem 
>>with $15 batteries.
>>
>>  It would be frustrating if the third party batteries had a 50% 
>>chance of being poor or worse, but that certainly hasn't been my 
>>experience. At the failure rate outlined above, and at the price 
>>differential, I can't see myself buying another Leica battery.
>
>have you locked in on a single source for these "relatively" good 
>third party M batteries?
>
>Regards,
>George Lottermoser
>george at imagist.com
>http://www.imagist.com
>http://www.imagist.com/blog
>http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 

       Henning J. Wulff
  Wulff Photography & Design
mailto:henningw at archiphoto.com
   http://www.archiphoto.com