FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA

From what I read , no one can come close to them in terms of customer service. I deal with Hunt's (just outside of Boston) because I live close to Hunt's Photo & Video.

olemikey Loc: 6 mile creek, Spacecoast Florida

All I can say is hooray for B&H !!!! Happy customer. Always done me right!

brooklyn-camera I Loc: Brooklyn, NY

B&H is the best, never had a problem with any purchases that I made from B&H. My go to store for all my photo needs.

Paul J. Svetlik Loc: Colorado

B&H has been my friend for about forty years.
I hope they will stay that way for another forty?

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

josquin1 Loc: Massachusetts

Back in the 70s the place to go to was Olden Camera.

Dossile

Hands down, my first choice in photography buying. Good luck with Adorama too, but I like B&H’s website best. Both have admirable customer service. In other areas as well, I have moved to local shops and companies dedicated to a general product area (ie. Crutchfelds, REI, eBags, etc.) and away from Amazon and other super stores. Even though I research my purchases, I like knowledgeable and personable customer service.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I order from B&H if I cannot purchase locally, but I try to purchase locally even if is more expensive.

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

I've had nothing but great service from B&H for decades - way back into my film days.

That said, my experience with batteries in digital cameras is that I NEVER get the number of shots they show in the specs. I'm sure there's some standard routine they follow to come up with the published number, but the way *I* work with the camera must be way different. I walk around with mine on all the time, ready to shoot, and I shoot RAW+JPEG. I wonder if I'd get more shots if I only turned the camera on when I want to take a shot, and stored the smallest JPEG?

I always buy extra batteries for a camera. Just picked up a refurbished Olympus Tough TG6 in a sale they ran, and had 2 extra (third party) batteries and a charger in hand from Amazon before the camera arrived from Olympus.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Kudos to B&H for their exceptionally good customer service. (I'm not surprised, I've been a B&H customer for decades and have always found them excellent).

But, I suspect you're going to be disappointed with the new battery, too. I bet the original isn't "bad" at all and the 2nd battery will give similar number of shots (at least now you'll have a spare to have charged and ready to use when it expires).

Possibly it's some of your settings that are contributing to unusually short battery life. If not already doing so, there are some things you might try to conserve power and get more shots per charge...

1. Set the camera to go into sleep mode the shortest possible time (1 minute on many Canon). Today's cameras "wake up" so quickly, this isn't a problem. Older cameras that were slow to wake could cause you to miss shots. But today a camera is almost instantly awake with the touch of a button, so it's not an issue and saves a lot of power.

2. Turn off "auto review" of your images. The default on most Canon is to immediately display the last image taken on the rear LCD screen for a period of time. There's no real need to do that with every shot. Instead just manually call up the occasional image review when you want to confirm if you got a particular shot or to check the histogram to see if your exposure settings are correct. In other words, only use image review purposefully and selectively. Note: Doing this also discourages "chimping" or "pixel peeping", which probably causes a lot of missed shots too!

3. Unless you really, really need them, turn off WiFi and GPS. Both are known to draw power and drain batteries quickly.

4. Are you using the camera's "Econo" mode to save power? I don't have an M5 and don't know how this limits shooting, but it's something that might help.

5. You will probably naturally become more efficient using the menu to make changes to settings, as you become more familiar with the camera. The less time you spend with the menu displayed, the longer the batteries will last.

There may be some other ideas from some actual M5 users... some more ways to conserve battery power with the camera.

I've used those and other power saving measures with my Canon DSLRs.... and I get far, FAR more shots per charge than they're rated to give. My most used DSLRs are supposed to average 900 shots per battery, per charge. I regularly shoot upwards of 1200 per battery/charge and still have power remaining.

There's only so much you can do, though. All mirrorless cameras use more power than the DSLRs you (and I) are accustomed to. The electronic viewfinder (EVF) is a heavy draw on the batteries.... and you can't really turn that off while using the camera. Plus the M5 (like many/most mirrorless) uses a pretty small battery to save size and weight. The LP-E6N you use in your DSLR are twice the size and nearly double the capacity of the LP-E17 used in the M5. LP-E17 are rated to have 1040 mAh, while LP-E6N have 1865 mAh. Plus there's no option for a battery grip to increase capacity with the M-series cameras. (Canon really should offer a grip and design the camera with the connectivity to use one! I hope they do so with the M5 Mark II, if and when they build it. Yeah, I know folks think it's all about small and light with mirrorless... and that's true to an extent. But an optional vertical/battery grip would be a very useful accessory with the more advanced models such as the M5 and M6 series and I bet there are a lot of people who would buy them... if only Canon would make them! Yo, Canon... Fuji, Oly, Panasonic and Sony shooters can buy battery grips for their cameras! Why can't we?)

All we can do is plan ahead with spare batteries, charged up and ready to go, because we're likely to need them!

It's great B&H has given you one free... Maybe you should buy another from them? Three is better than two!

P.S. For my three "daily user" Canon DSLRs I use grips with dual batteries, as well as carry two extra batteries per camera. Twelve LP-E6N total. I also have extra chargers... four total... so I can have multiple batteries recharging at the same time. This is actually fewer spare batteries and extra chargers than I needed and used back when I was using older Canon cameras with BP511A batteries. Those weren't as efficient, didn't get as many shots per charge, so I carried four spares for each camera, in addition to the two in each camera's grip.

I've been looking at getting an M5 myself... and I plan to get at least two spare batteries and some little Op/Tech pouches that attach to the camera strap to hold them, to be certain I always have them handy!

cahale Loc: San Angelo, TX

And beside that, if you use their Payboo credit card, they will refund the sales tax. Great company.

bcplimpton Loc: Southern New Jersey

In my experience that is typical of their service.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

As a ‘card-holding’ MBA, I wonder how this actually works. There is a bank behind the “Payboo” card, and that bank is betting that a certain percentage of their card holders won’t pay in time, and ”finance” charges will more than pay off the sales tax charges “forgiven”??

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

You're confusing the bank with the store. For more information:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/credit-cards

.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Not at all.

The card has both names on it.

You get this “benefit” only if you use the card, so the “benefit” comes from the bank behind the card, not from the store.

B&H gets their money.
Your state gets their money.
Guess who provides all that money.