About 3rd Party Batteries

[lonepal]

Hi;

I am looking for a spare BLH-1 battery for my Olympus OMD M1 Mark2.
Original battery is too expensive.
I already know there are risks of using a 3rd party battery.
I found 2 brands that are being told as good.

These are Wasabi and Kaster.

Do anybody have experience about these 3rd party batteries?
Are they good enough and which one is better?

Thanks for your precious comments.

[enricosavazzi]

I don't know about third-party batteries for the E-M1 II, since I only have one spare battery for this camera and it is original Olympus despite the price. I did buy third-party batteries for the E-M1 I and E-M5, but about one-third of them ended up swelling and sometimes jamming in the camera (and this is why I gave up on third-party batteries for the E-M1 II).

I think one of the biggest risks with third-party batteries is that some of them don't work with the original camera charger and force you to use a third-party charger. It seems these chargers are very cheaply made and lack overcharge protection. This is the case of all Olympus third-party batteries I know of. If I am right, then the source of the problem with battery swelling is the charger rather than the battery.

I use a few third-party batteries for my Sony EF cameras, and did use third-party batteries with several Nikon APS-C DSLRs. I never had problems with these batteries (except that they hold a somewhat lesser charge than original ones), and this is likely because they recharge in the original camera charger rather than a third-party one.

[TheDocAUS]

Newmowa is another brand to look at. While I have not used the Olympus battery, I have used there Sony FZ100 and Panasonic G9 batteries from Newmowa without issues.

You can often but two batteries, 2 battery cases and a USB charger for a good price on Amazon.

[lonepal]

Thanks for your comments.

Kastar also claims that the batteries are fully decoded and body can read remaining battery life and you can use original charger. There is no such guarantee for other brands.

It also looks like only shipped from USA so I think there is better QC and reliability.

[enricosavazzi]

Thanks for your comments.

Kastar also claims that the batteries are fully decoded and body can read remaining battery life and you can use original charger. There is no such guarantee for other brands.

It also looks like only shipped from USA so I think there is better QC and reliability.

An old-ish test of Kastar batteries for Canon:
https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2 ... with-risks

Don't know anything about current Kastar batteries for E-M1 II. I do remain skeptical about third-party batteries, especially those that cannot be charged in the original camera charger.

Also very interesting at the above link is the comparison of the internal electronics of genuine versus no-brand chargers.

[lonepal]

Hi;

Nice link and you changed my mind about buying a 3rd party battery

I think this toppic should be sticky.