Battery grips

If you've never used a battery, or vertical, grip before you could be forgiven for wondering why anyone would want to make their camera heavier and bulkier. Once you've put one on your camera and used it for a couple of days, however, you'll find it difficult to use your camera without it. It allows you to rotate your camera from the landscape to portrait orientation whilst maintaining the same grip on the camera. The battery grip also duplicates key buttons such as shutter, exposure lock, AF point selection and the main dial - giving you a more consistent 'feel' between the two orientations. The camera also feels more balanced when putting heavier L-series (Canon's professional range) lenses on the camera, with the grip acting as a counterweight. Finally, it allows you to put two batteries in your camera (reassuring on a long wedding day) and comes with a battery converter allowing you to power your camera with 4 x AA batteries. An essential piece of kit.

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