Sony VG-C70AM Alpha Vertical Grip

Like many, I googled for opinions on the necessity of a vertical grip. In general, the people that purchased them loved it. I wasn't sold. At least not until I spent a day taking pictures of my 3 month old daughter. Holding the camera, sans grip, in portait orientation while waiting for those precious moments can take a toll on your wrist. Especially when you have good glass mounted (70-200 2.8 ~ 3lbs). I also noticed more camera shake without it.

I'm truly impressed with all the functionality that they included with the grip. Almost all the buttons that you routinely use are on the grip (including joystick). The buttons are even weather sealed, like the camera. Only thing missing is the playback button, but that's just a training issue. $250 is a bit hefty, but this grip does have more features than the average grip. I'm totally satisfied with this purchase.

The Sony VG-C70AM Vertical Grip is one helpful add-on for your A700.

Unlike other vertical grips, this one is LOADED with buttons and functions. Whereas the competitors make grips with just the shutter button and a dial to control shutter speed or aperture, this one replicates the back of the A700, providing you of all the buttons and controls youll need without having to take your eye off the viewfinder.

It has the Auto Focus/Manual Focus direct access button in it, the C and Fn button, the joystick, AEL Lock button and Exposure compensation, along of course the two dials to control shutter speed and aperture separately.

This grip is also built as the A700, has a magnesium alloy chasis, which makes it tough, durable and just as sturdy as the camera body.

If you dont shoot vertically, then probably you wont have much use for it, however, there are some details to consider:

1.- The grip can use two batteries, so if one runs out of charge, it switches automatically to the other one without you needing to intervene.

One thing to keep in mind is that it usually picks the battery with the less power left in order to exhaust it first.

2.- If you have big hands, the vertical grip expands the place available to get a grip (pun intended).

3.- If you use big and/or heavy lenses, the vertical grip provides balance in the camera body-lens weight ratio.

4.- If you shoot vertically, it eliminates the strain generated by twisting your wrists to hold the camera. Maybe you wont notice if you hold the camera for brief periods of time, but try it for an hour and youll be glad you got this item. The body with battery and memory card is heavy on its own (765 grams aprox.) so you do the math...

Few things to keep in mind about this product:

1.- It has a tripod screw to mount the camera with this item attached, BUT make sure that your tripod head can deal with this grip, some heads cant be screwed to the grip due to bigger screws on them.

2.- If you havent upgraded your A700 to firmware V4, you may experience problems between the grip and the camera which may end up with the camera locked and forcing you to remove the batteries and restart the camera. V4 fixes this.

3.- You can attach the Grip Belt to this vertical grip, the grip belt has a tripod screw which may solve the tripod head problem I mentioned in point #1.

4.- This grip has a hollow space in order to accomodate the body's battery door so you dont have to remove it (like when using a A200 with its correspondent VG).

5.- The only downside of this grip is that it doesnt increase the frames per second speed, some competitor grips allow you to shoot more frames per second when attaching a grip, but this one keeps it at 5 fps.

In my opinion, that doesnt outweight all the benefits this grip offers.

Some people dont like VGs because they dont really need them, so before you purchase it, analyze first if you actually need it and weigh in the info I gave you here. If you end up buying it, you wont be disappointed, it will expand your control over your A700 in a seamless manner.

I've had my A700 for a while but held off on getting the grip. It's just a battery holder and I'm and underpaid part time freelancer for a local newspaper, I thought. I can carry around an extra battery in my bag and save the $$ for a new lens. One day I tried a demo out in the store and fell in love with the grip on the spot. It completely changed the way the camera handled. Now the camera feels more balanced. With most of the controls duplicated on the grip, I actually like shooting vertical shots. My fast zoom lenses (heavy buggers) feel more balanced too. The grip makes the camera look more 'pro' too. Now I don't feel inferior to the Canikons when shooting events in the media pool :). The only negative is when I'm shooting in Aperture or Shutter mode I occasionally bump one of the dials and change the setting. But you can turn the grip control off with a switch. This will not get you a job with SI, but it will make your photography more enjoyable.

Great comfortable grip. The grip fills larger in the hand than the camers body grip. Controls on grip are easy to reach. A must have item if you shoot a lot of portrait framed sports. Having 2 batteries is a plus when shooting a long day with the a700.

This extended grip is a great addition to the A700. It integrates incredibly with the camera - the only complaint that I have is that it drains your batteries quickly