Review: LCD Timer Battery Grip for Canon 400D

Since I first starting planning to buy myself a Canon 400D DSLR camera, I figured I’d want the BG-E3 battery grip to go with it. Why? Better battery life, more flexible holding and shooting options, and of course the coolness factor. My budget at the time didn’t extend to some of the lesser priorities like a battery grip – lenses and bags have more urgent functional use.

Since acquiring the camera Q2 2007, I’ve always had my eye out for a grip. I’ve checked out the genuine Canon one, as well as a few clones – most of which are made in China. Some only have a shutter release button, and no other controls, and are around £40 cheap.

Anyway, one day a few months ago I spotted one on eBay entitled “LCD Timer Battery Grip”. Since it had an extra screen and more buttons to press I had to have a closer look. It looked the business so I eventually succumbed and made the purchase.

The package arrived 5 days later.

For a squideon under sixty (including shipping) I got:
1x LCD Timer BG-E3 compatible Battery Grip
2x NB-2LH 720mAh batteries
1x hand strap
1x User manual
2x battery trays – one for 6x AA cells / one for 2x NB-2L type li-ion batteries

First impressions weren’t too bad. It obviously came from China. There’s no box – it was just wrapped in bubble wrap inside a plain envelope. I don’t have a problem with that if it keeps the cost down.

This particular battery grip is a bit different from all the others I’ve seen in that it includes an intervalometer. I don’t know how good / flexible it is as an intervalometer, but for my limited playing around, I’m sure it will be fine.

To attach the grip to the camera, you take out the camera’s battery, and remove the battery enclosure door from the camera. If you didn’t know you could do that, look closely at the hinge. There is a little knob. Pull that knob away from the side that it’s on, and the door pops off. In other words, the battery door’s hinge has a spring loaded pin – something like that of a watch strap pin, just easier to operate.

Slide the grip into the battery compartment and line up the screw with the tripod mount under the camera. Screw it in and there you go.

Next step is to click the batteries into the holder and slide it into the battery bay. Do I need to tell you to charge the batteries first? You can use one or two batteries, and the documentation says that they can be at different charge levels. I don’t know how true this is, or how the grip (electronically) manages the distribution. The battery bay door is on the left hand side, and has an unusual (to me) catch. You have to use a fingernail to unclip and then twist the catch anti-clock 90` to open.

Here’s the important bit: how does it feel? It comes from China, and it’s relatively inexpensive, so you’re expecting a cheap plastic toy. Not completely. It is pretty solid, although the plastic is of lesser quality than the camera’s. I don’t believe that distracts that greatly from the functionality though. The buttons though. Hmmm. They don’t click with the same positiveness. They seem to have more play. The scroll wheel just behind the shutter release “clucks” instead of “clicks”, implying the sound is coming from a cheaper, hollow plastic. It’s not a £120 device. It’s a £60 one, but it does the job, and looks the part. Anyone that sees it on your camera is going to be impressed, because yes, it certainly does give the 400D more presence.

In use, turning the camera to portrait, I still get caught out with the viewfinder being lower than I think it should be. (Maybe I’m just out-of-sync.) The grip you wrap your fingers around is thicker and deeper than that of the standard 400D. For my small hands I’m still debating how comfortable this is. The use is natural though. That said, the alignment of where the shutter button is, compared to on the camera, is a bit different – it’s further up, out, and to the right. At first click, I might be trying to press the selector wheel.

The battery grip has lots of buttons, and an LCD display. Here’s what you get:
- shutter release button
- selector wheel
- AE lock
- AF point selector / review zoom
- The above four are where you would expect them to be located – at the index finger or thumb – and work exactly like on the camera.
- Av+/- Exposure compensation (like on the camera, but positioned just below the AR lock)
- An on-off switch (ie: whether to use the vertical camera controls or not)
- LCD backlight on/off
- Four buttons to set and adjust the intervalometer functions / set the clock / etc
- A three-way slider switch to select “professional functions”, as the manual calls them.

The grip has its own little CR1616 lithium battery to keep its clock and settings running. You can screw in a standard tripod, in the usual place underneath. There is also a single strap mounting point underneath.

Size-wise, looking from the back as normal, the grip is perfectly flush with the camera on the right, but sticks out by 2 or 3mm on the left. The side view - looking from the left side of the camera – the grip is an exaggerated pear shape. Fatter than it is high. It sticks out about a centimetre back and front of the main body of the 400D. I haven’t weighed the grip, but at a guess it does add, with batteries, about 200g to the camera. If you’re using a bigger, heavier lens, this might help to balance things out – although it will certainly give your deltoids and biceps a reasonable workout over a longer period.

One of the “professional functions” is IR. There is an IR receive port on the front, but I’m yet to get it to work with my standard cheap IR shutter release. Maybe it needs a special one from China?

I’ll talk about the other “professional functions” - the intervalometer - in another post.

In conclusion:
Pros: better battery life (sort of), better grip options, especially for shooting portrait, intervalometer, better weight distribution if using a heavy zoom lens.
Cons: extra weight and size, “get-what-you-pay-for” quality plastic and buttons, poor user manual, could offer more features.
Recommended: yes. Value for money: yes. Is it for everybody: no.