You certainly know the unofficial batteries, called “compatible”, they are significantly cheaper than the original and sometimes they are not bad. However, note that the manufacturers will avoid the warranty (and sometimes quite rightly) of your product if you used such batteries and encountered a problem. By experience, I have always favored the purchase of original batteries and now I have 5 Canon LP-E6 battery for my two bodies. In this article, I will not talk about batteries “compatible”, but counterfeit! There are about twenty days, I ordered one sixth copy to anticipate, among other things, an upcoming trip to Nepal. The battery then received had a different “touch” that I immediately noticed but since Canon points in the instructions that “The product specifications and exterior are subject to change without notice”, I considered it was likely possible, especially since the battery was in its packaging, manual, cap… in short, everything complete. Placed in my 5D Mark II or 7D, she “stated” as an LP-E6, with serial number. Still, I decided to test its performance. In LiveView mode, LCD brightness to manual and maximum, lens stabilization active and automatic shutdown of the camera turned off, the battery was drained in 40 minutes during a first test, 50 min. for the second. By comparison, my original battery was at 50% of it's capacity after 1 hour and 20 min. So I returned the product for “performance or quality not adequate” and got a refund. A few days later, I placed a new order from a different store. The second battery was completely identical to the previous one(!), and this has obviously been confirmed by the tests… The doubt of counterfeiting was then in my mind. While there are aesthetic differences here and there (see the rest of this article), both batteries have been recognized by the camera, everything seemed “real”, and also, they were both purchased on two different stores, as official Canon batteries. In addition, some talks about this new Japanese regulations — which I don't know in detail — that would regulate the power of new batteries. Could these two batteries be original? How to ensure? So I started taking reference photographies, studying differences, and I sincerely thank the Bistro members for the help, the Canon support and two other stores. I've then been able to get enough certitudes to say that these two batteries are counterfeit. So, to help you make effective identification, you will find below a series of comparisons between such a battery and its original version. I'm sure some of you will find those differences obvious, but quite frankly, these fakes really surprised me. They have a very high degree of likelihood and it's certain that many people have them, by ignoring it, especially since many do not keep the packaging, manuals, etc. and/or do not pay attention to it. If I didn't had the curiosity/desire to test the battery, I would have been fooled. Instantly and without comparison, I had put away the observed differences in quality (printing of the box, battery plastic, etc.) to a simple reduction of production costs, unfortunately common in many areas. How good will be the tomorrow's counterfeit?

The third order was finally good!

Hopefully, my third order have been the good one, belying the proverb “things come in threes”. I want to thank and congratulate Amazon.fr for their excellent product feedback system, their phone support and their reliability about the authenticity of the products they sell “themselves”. At the end of this article, you will find a list of sellers to avoid and which to focus. It is based on my own experiences and user feedback following this article.
Official battery packaging sold by Amazon.fr
Canon LP-E6 • Detailled comparison : main differences
Canon LP-E6 • Original batteries series

Good and bad sellers:

The experience taught me twice, that buying such products from third party resellers on Amazon is subject to vigilance. I invite you to always try to buy products “Shipped from and sold by Amazon”. I also hope that Amazon will take appropriate actions to prevent such kind of practices.
Gallery and user feedback, thank you!

What's now?

If this article has helped you to identify that one of your batteries was a counterfeit, I would like you to comment this post or use the form on the right to tell me the name of the store you bought it and if you wish, to provide me one or more photos. I will then update the following user gallery/database of counterfeits and their sellers on this article.

This symbolic coffee would be a true expression of your appreciation of this work.

Please help fighting counterfeit

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