My orig. equip. Canon charger for the XL H1 battery is MIA. Prices for generics range from about $4.00 to $40.00, then jump to over $100 for the actual Canon.

Is there a sweet spot for these things? Is there a brand or online store you'd recommend?

I don't want to pay more than i need to, but I don't want to ruin the battery either.

Thanks.

You are unlikely to damage a battery with any of them. I have a bunch of chargers, both generic and Canon originals and all work equally well and never have given problems. The original Canon chargers are more expensive, but the build-quality does tend to be slightly better than the cheaper generic versions.

For years I use only genuine Canon chargers. They all are still alive and work fine. Besides those, I bought few of $20-$40 chargers over ebay. None of them worked well. Maybe all of them were defect, I don't know. I won't be buying nothing than original anymore.

Batteries are, however, different story. Every Canon battery BP-9XX I user worked fine for appx. two years. I had lots of them, so "wear and tear" disposition was OK. But I won't buy genuine batteries anymore. Never. $40 8000mAh from ebay are worth every cent. For first six months of weekend usage they lasted nearly 4hrs of recording on XL2. Everything handheld ENG-style, so OIS was always ON. Today they still achieve amazing 2hrs, and I look to buy some more for next season.