I was planning on getting a batterygrip for the gh3 but Panasonic Belgium charges 440 dollar for it (21% tax included) which I find a very high price for a grip. But I saw there are some Chinese not original versions to be had for a lot less, found one on Ebay with a batterygrip, 2 batteries and a charger for 98 dollar AND free delivery to my doorstep! I have no idea how they do that...

This same combination would cost me 770(!) dollar in Belgium, I used to have a very cheap no name brand batterygrip for my 550d with 2 fake batteries as well and they have worked without any issue in more then 2 years, I am not expecting the same performance on battery capacity but I mean, for a 670 dollar price difference? I only hope the battrygrip works more or less decent, I know that sometimes the indication of what is left on your battery is wrong on these fake batteries but after a while you know how long you can shoot before it's time to exhcange. Think I"ll take the risc ans see what these Chinese products are worth.

I think you have to take a chance at that price - Just have it set to use grip battery first and it should be fine: at least if you have a genuine Panasonic battery in the body itself, you can rely on that in case the grip battery drains suddenly.

Thx for the tip of setting it to use the batterygrip battery first, wasn't aware this was possible. I received the grip yesterday, works without a issue so far but need to see how long the batteries will last.

It's a handy setting - also, I think it may be possible to swap out batteries in the grip without losing power in camera - Will have to double check that though, don't have camera to hand at the moment.

Noa, may not be an issue with your grip, but for the GH2 I had a chinese grip and after a few months the camera got really weird on me suddenly at a wedding. Forget the symptoms but it was so bad it freaked me out. I took off the grip, and the problems went away. I threw it out.

I just have to keep my fingers crossed then :) I need the battery grip mainly to add extra weight to the camera so it balances better on my steadicam, there is a on/off button on the grip so I guess it should be possible to decativate it so it only takes the battery inside the camera, in the worst case I could cut off the connectionpins on the grip and leave the grip on, I have noticed that the batterylife is much longer then on my canon 550d.

It's likely that as with the Canon grips that the GH3 grip will be an exact copy of the 'proper' one. Rumour has it that Canon copies are actually made on t,he same production line on the night shift. There was no GH2 grip from Panasonic so no opportunity to piggy-back on Panasonic's engineering R&D.