Any good cheap DV batteries?
 

Just shopping for brand names. Are there any particular brand of DV batteries that have a good value for the price?

I'm not particularly brand loyal in the prosumer world (meaning I have little experience buying little Canon and Sony batteries, because I find you quickly become brand loyal). I was just wondering if there was an off-brand of smaller camera battery that people really recommend for the price. Or is it a pretty standard, "you get what you pay for," situation?

The kind of batteries I am looking at are the standard GL2/XL2/XHA1/XLH1 plug in battery.

Not terribly interested in a system like an Anton Bauer goldmount or something like that. Just the 970 type batteries, and I just know there are a ton of companies that make the form factor.

I've had excellent luck with batteries ordered from:

http://www.fatgadgets.com

Two ordered for my Panasonic PV GS500 cost about $25.00 each and are giving me excellent service (One lasted for a weekend of close to constant on and off shooting, never even had to put the second in). The small battery supplied with the camcorder gives close to 45 minutes of use, these are double in size and I guess I'm getting 2.5 to 3 hours out of them.

Also recently ordered two replacements for the BP-511 that powers the original Canon Digital Rebel. a couple of years ago I had ordered two from SterlingTek but their performance has been flaky. The fatgadgets version is doing at least as well as the original Canon.

Hope this helps.

I have a Power 2000 version of the Sony NP-F970 battery. It seems to perform exactly the same as the real Sony.