As I rarely have use for a battery grip I thought I'd save big money by getting said product over Nikon's own MB-D17.
A short summary of my initial findings:
- Fit is very good albeit some very small gaps can be seen between the camera and grip.
- Rubber grip material feels and looks almost identical to the camera's.
- Buttons; not Nikon quality and feel but quite fine. Would have liked to see the control wheels rubberized. Tactile feel of shutter button is a bit more plastic.
- Battery compartment lid has a very good fit and opening/locking latch works great.
- AA battery tray takes 8 batteries (either Alkaline, NiCd or Li). Manual states operation temperature 0-40˚C which to me says the plastic lips holding the batteries in place are better not asked to flex at sub zero conditions...i.e. do not replace the AA batteries before the unit has reached + ˚C.
- The bottom of the grip's outer shell is on the inside of the battery chamber reinforced with a flat piece of plastic. A much better choice of material is steel as in the MB-D17. This has no negative effect for my use as I will use the grip handheld. I do think that a nerd ought to be able to replace the plastic strip with a something better
- To further assess the build quality I took off the top and to my pleasant surprise I saw that the electronic contact unit has a gasket and is secured to the grip with three screews and metal brackets. I've seen other non OEM grips where the contact unit has been held in place by thin plastic clips. Screews and steel brackets will prevent the contact unit from get loose/break after attach/detach operations. (This reminds me of a D800 I had where the 10-pin connector broke during use and did a walkabout inside the camera)@@
Oh, forgot to mention that the grip also came with a very handy remote...delayed, long exposure and time-lapse feature included. Operating range is at least 100m.
