Funny story. I was in England 2 weeks ago and my wife and I, along with some friends from Bristol, were visiting the beautiful seaside town of Lyme Regis. Of course I was taking pictures. A Canadian tourist walked up to me and asked what camera I was using. I told him it was a Nikon d810. He then explained that he has the same camera and his battery had died and the spare was back at his hotel hours away. He asked if I had a charged spare and if I would swap it for his dead one. I thought how I’d feel if I were in such a beautiful place and unable to take pictures so I said I would. He needed to go to his car to get the battery so I told him where we’d be so he could meet us later.

While we were waiting for him my friends and I were joking that this was some kind of battery scam and this guy was just waiting to find someone with the same camera or, alternatively, he had a large supply of many different dead batteries and prowled tourist areas to unload them. In a little while he showed up with his battery. I noticed it was an after market brand and pointed out mine was a genuine Nikon battery. He agreed that wasn’t a fair trade and immediately handed me £20. I almost didn’t take it but he was insistent.

So that evening when we got back to our Bristol hosts’ home, I plugged it in to charge. It seemed to charge normally and I didn’t give it any further thought. However, days later when I put it in my camera it showed about 3/4 and almost immediately dropped to half. I charged it fully again with the same result. So he got a virtually brand new Nikon battery worth $55 and I got a useless piece of crap plus £20 (about $26). I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t realize his battery was shot and I imagine I’d probably do the same thing in the very unlikely event something like that ever happens again. Better yet, maybe I’ll try the same thing he did when I happen to run into someone else with a d810 ; ).