Not sure what battery these cameras use...whether a custom form factor or a standard one, or what chemistry the batteries use. But I would be very concerned with any Lithium ion battery that could be sold at retail for $5, even at my trusted local dealer.Likely no control chip, no short circuit protection, etc. Also wonder how long it has been sitting on the shelf. I wish you good luck with the battery, but I seriously doubt that it is equivalent to the OEM battery. You could, of course, always check with the manufacturer and hear what they have to say about those batteries. Most reputable 3rd party batteries are somewhere around 20-25% less than the OEM ones. And one of my local camera shops discounts Nikon branded batteries by about 33%. I have no idea whether they do the same with Canon, but would expect that they do about the same.

All of my cameras represent significant investment and value to me...even the older ones that I am still using (one still using the battery that was in the box when I bought it in 2006). I am not willing to risk their life by using batteries that even might risk causing damage.

Try your local dealers. I recently traded a Nikon D610 for a D810. I worked hard to patronize my local camera shops. Both were selling the 810 for the same July sale price of $2795. But one of them offered $300 more for the D610. I did not get quite as much as I could have sold it for, but the deal was quick and easy, and the difference wasn't much. The big benefit is that I supported my local dealer.

I agree. This is one of the most "unexpected" places that I have ever visited. Light is different because of the high latitude, and the old glacial ice has a blue tint. It is especially fascinating to occasionally look down from the deck of the ship where the fresh water meets up with the salt water. It doesn't mix immediately, resulting in some very interesting swirl patterns.

I don't believe the big risk is for "apocryphal" failure, although in-camera fires have been documented in the past from improperly made batteries. We hear about the ones from OEM batteries, because the knowledge protects their products against potential damage, but the third party folks usually choose not to publicize events involving their batteries even if they know about them. The question is whether there is any net benefit from spending a few less dollars for a battery.

As for the batteries that are monumentally cheaper, like 25 or 30 percent of an OEM or "respectable" third party battery...buy one if you want, but if there is a failure, then you deserve what you get.

I think the question here remains why anyone would spend thousands of dollars on a camera body and then scrimp on batteries about which they feel the need to ask others if they think are OK to use. The fact that you have to ask should tell you that you are seeing red flags. Don't ask us to validate what you have already identified as a risky choice in your own mind. If you choose to take what you have clearly already identified as a risk, then accept the possible consequences.

I'm not trying to be ugly here, but come on!!!

The image of the sun is very small...only about 0.25 degrees of arc. It appears as a very small portion of the frame even through a significant telephoto lens. I agree that an image of the corona and earth like this would be a very impressive image, but expect that the solar image would end up covering only a few pixels when seen through the necessary ultra wide angle lens. And you wouldn't need a solar filter during totality, but you may even so need to do some HDR magic to make it all work.

All that said, it would be impressive if you could find a way to capture the image and prove us doubters wrong.

My preference is to use OEM batteries, because even the smallest amount of impurity in the electrolyte can cause an internal short circuit resulting in battery heating and possibly fire. That is what happened with the original version of the EN-EL3 batteries and what has happened recently leading to the current recall of EN-EL15 batteries.

On two occasions, I have reluctantly had to purchase third party batteries. The first was after the tsunami in Japan impacted the factory where Nikon's batteries are made and Nikon EN-EL3es were not available, and again last month when I was unable to purchase a second EN-EL15 battery for my D810 because of the current recall.

The third party EN-ELe is still in service, but it has always had significantly faster self-discharge than the equivalent OEMs. The third party EN-EL15 seems OK, but I haven't had it long enough to make a determination around its performance.

I will say that I have not seen the huge cost savings on third party batteries. Both of my local camera stores sell the OEM batteries at very competitive prices. (I think they view doing so as a way to get me into the store, hoping I'll buy batteries plus something else.) There has never been a significant economic incentive for me to stray.

Looks like a little Texas morsel on the windshield, perhaps. Very nice shot for going through the glass.

I have been using money orders as one way to pay for mail orders for 50 years, including on this site within the past week. As a buyer, it is one of my preferred methods. Why? A postal money order sent through the USPS via a traceable method gives you as a buyer strong legal recourse in case of any problem. Failure to ship would be mail fraud, and postal authorities will aggressively investigate and prosecute. A money order will cost you $1.20. Certified mail with return receipt is about $5 above first class. As one who was recently a victim of credit card fraud resulting from business not on this website, my family and I believe that is cheap enough insurance. It also protects the seller against the possibility of a bad check from a buyer. He can get his funds immediately.

Just as a note...my D810 is a lot quieter than the almost new D300s I traded for recently. So in my experience the noise argument does not hold any water.

And there are compact full-frame bodies...like the D610.

I do not notice any difference handling my D810 (FX) vs. my D300 and D300s (DX) when same lenses are mounted.

There are some DX only lenses available that are smaller and lighter, but they are also not of the same build quality as the best of the heavier FX lenses. Some of the recent ones are quite sharp, though.

Please remember...the chart shows discharge rates just for the battery...if it weren't in the camera. Any drain caused by the camera (or other system) drawing current would be in addition to what is shown.

I was visiting with the owner of my local camera repair shop. He told me that cameras used to be designed and built modularly. When he did a repair, even a major one, he could test the individual modules for functionality before reassembling the camera. I recently did an upgrade on my niece's laptop. Instead of being able to simply remove a couple of screws, slip the disc drive out and replace it with a new solid state drive, I had to almost completely disassemble the entire machine to finally access the drive. Even years ago when I was going to school and working in a local appliance repair shop, there were some brands (the cheap ones) that were riveted together instead of being assembled with screws, rendering them unrepairable because they could not be disassembled without destroying them.

Initial quality seems to me to still be OK with most of our photographic equipment. But the long-term reliability and repairability is being engineered out in the interest of small up-front cost savings. I expect that high-end models will be the last to fall to this change. But it has apparently already happened for entry-level and some intermediate level products. So prepare for the time when you will just throw away and replace equipment...even when it suffers only minor problems.

I agree that vehicles can sometimes accumulate an incredible number of miles. My Volvo is approaching 150,000. But when a failure does occur, the repair cost is astronomical. I recently had a small refrigerant leak in the A/C. Repair was right at $4,000. (Equal estimate from 3 different repair shops.)

And no...these changes are not imagined or just the result of our perception. They are very real.

Remember that the intensity of sunlight on the moon is +/- 0.5 % of the same sunlight that strikes the earth at the equator at noon. Atmospheric effects end up being almost identical. So you can always start by following the "Sunny 16" rule...exposure of f/16 at a shutter speed equal to 1/ISO (or the equivalent). And the moon isn't really white. The image our eyes receive is "overexposed" because we see it on such a dark background. Our eyes do not have spot metering, and the high contrast fools our biological matrix metering system into using too wide a lens opening.

For me, when you took that step to the right so that we could see all of the closest falls, the result was a more satisfying image. It would have been interesting to see what would have been the result if you could have stepped to the left and out on the outcrop visible in #1. That would have let you keep more of the mountain. Of course, since I wasn't there, I can't judge whether that would have been safe to do or even possible.

There was a total solar eclipse in February 1979. Totality was visible in Washington State and across Canada, but a a partial eclipse was visible across most of the rest of the US.

For that eclipse, the emphasis was on making camera obscura viewers, since appropriate solar viewing filters were not readily available at that time. The easiest way to do this is to take a cardboard box about 2 feet long and cut a square hole in one end, near the bottom of the box. Try a 2 x 2 inch square about one inch up from the bottom of the box and centered from side to side. Attach a white piece of paper to the other end. Now take a small square of aluminum foil, larger than the square that you cut out, say about 4 x 4 inches. Punch a small hole with the end of an ice pick or geometry compass. Tape the foil over the hole that you cut out. You will have to experiment with the size of the hole. A larger hole will make a brighter image, but a smaller hole will make a sharper image. If you've done things right, the projected image will be bigger than the hole.

Now turn the box over so that the opening is on the bottom. Face away from the sun and arrange the box so that the pinhole is behind your head (facing the sun) and you are looking at the paper. Make sure that your head is not between the pinhole and the paper and move around until you can see the sun projected on the paper. A longer box will produce a larger, but dimmer image. Experiment with adding cloth around the bottom opening to keep more ambient light out.

The next refinement would be to close the bottom of the box and make a reasonably light-tight opening somewhere reasonably near the pinhole to allow you to access the inside of the box with a camera lens (probably a macro lens) that will allow you to take a photo of the sun's image on the paper (screen).

Please note that the image produced on the screen in this manner is every bit as real an image of the sun as one created on a sensor by a lens, as long as the pinhole is very small. If it gets very large, it becomes just a spotlight image. not a resolved image of the sun. A reasonable pinhole size is probably between 1/64 and 1/32 inch. A projected image that is the same size as the pinhole tells you that your hole is too big.

You will probably not be able to see the corona through this arrangement...it just won't make a bright enough image.

Another option is simply to work without any equipment and watch what happens to the lighting and the appearance of the landscape. If you are anywhere in the vicinity of totality, you will see the entire character of the day's light change significantly. I haven't given a lot of thought yet to how to capture that photographically, but I was in Oklahoma City during the Canadian eclipse, and the change in light was striking.

Hope this helps some.