Quote Originally Posted by Sean Setters View Post
I obviously overestimated peoples' devotion to the battery grip. Speaking for me, personally, I'll never go back. ;-)
But then you'd have to remember that you are mainly a portrait photographer and you shoot a lot in that orientation. In that case I would have wanted it as well.

In my case I had an XSi with batterygrip(because the thing was too little on it's own). When I upgraded to a 50D and later a 5D2 I never missed the grip, because the size of the camera just felt good.
For the type of photos that I make I rarely shoot a lot portrait orientated. And when I do, I can just swing my arm over my head. Even in a wedding when you're switching fast from landscape orientation to portrait, I think I prefer to lift my arm over my head. If I would do a series of portrait orientated shots, the batterygrip would be much more justifiable. Also when I work with the tripod, I think the added weight of the grip and therefor the larger momentum on the ballhead when shooting portrait orientated would be a negative factor.

So if you are really used to working with the portrait orientated buttons on the grip, you're going to miss it. But if the grip is just for the better feeling...I would suggest to try without it for a while. In the Netherlands the 5D grip is also significantly more expensive than the rebel series grip.
The battery of the 5D2 has never failed on me, even when shooting 2000+ photos a day during air shows. So if you're a casual shooter the added battery power isn't really an important thing either.

But again, it's all personal. I have times where I wouldn't mind having one, but I also have times where one would be bothering me.

As for the CF cards, I have 2 8GB cards from my 50D which I use as backup cards. I use a 32GB Sandisk 60MB/s card as my main card and it stores about 1000-1300 shots. I love it.