Spare battery

Something you might want to consider is getting a cheap K5 grip from ebay. That'll take 6 AA betteries, or unbrandded equivalent batteries. You won't have to worry about poor quality batteries ruining the camera - they'll just ruin the cheap grip.

I have one of these cheap grips, and they do genuinely feel cheap. The buttons and wheels aren't great quality, and the plastic feels cheap. If I was only using it as an extra power store, I might not be as annoyed with the grip.

try the Innov8 D-LI90 equivalent on Amazon they are nearly half the price charged by SRS at the moment. £16 instead of of around £30.

Dave

Let me see if I can dig up the information from dpreview on K-5 batteries. Essentially it showed that all are quite bad except the Pentax and Hahnel ones.

Here it is:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=37224059

After seeing those tests I'd choose Pentax first, then Hahnel and finally Inov8. The rest seems to be too far off the stated capacity.

Meh!

I use 2* ebay batteries on rotation and save the Pentax authentic for occasions where I might need the full capacity and reliability.

The comparisons leave out the cost which might help.

ebay battery cost / watt hour = 8.99 / 1.209 = £7.44 per Amp hour

Pentax = 59.99 / 1.851 = £31.41 per Amp hour.

Inov8 = 16.42 / 1.234 = £13.31 per Amp hour.

The Inov8 is probably made from the same cells as the ebay sepcials but is just branded by a company who brand ( I originally wrote make) a bunch of other stuff. They just don't make such outlandish claims about its capacity.

I've once run out of power with the ebay batteries when out for a day's shooting. I don't remember having charged it before I went out and I just popped the other one in and carried on.

Anyway, as I understand it, the cells deteriorate as they are cycled. So hopefully as I don't subject the pentax to as many cycles it will last me longer. Making the £60 battery last the lifetime of the camera.

If I was a wedding photographer then I might want to spend a few hundred quid making sure I can do my my business without running down my battery. As I'm not I'll spend the £18 on 2 ebay specials.

The original capacity battery is quoted as lasting for 980 shots (p46 manual, conditional). The ebay specials are 65% capacity and you'll be looking at about 630 shots.

So with my 2 ebays and 1 original it makes a long day of 2254 (ish) images. About 22GB and I carry 32GB (4*8GB) memory cards 2 fast and 2 cheap. I should be OK.

Hahnel if you can get is for £25 more like £27.50 delivered seems a nice balance.

27.50 / 1.531 = £17.96 per Amp hour.

If you make the choice not to use Pentax batteries you are taking a risk. As pentax will find it hard to wriggle out of a warranty repair as their battery damaged their camera. people will say I would not risk using anything else. If I had just bought a K-5 then the extra £60 might not kill me. If I have a 12 month old K-7 or a GX10 then I choose ebay specials.

After the choice not to use Pentax it's just a matter of the probability your battery is going to blow up your camera. I would trust the good solid sounding German brand Hahnel more than Inov8 and waaaay more than billy no name on ebay. ANyway I buy the ebay ones and so far so good.

I have two Jupio batteries plus the original Pentax battery. They all work equally well, and give approximately the same number of photos per charge.
The Jupios were actually better than the Pentax in the severe cold.