You just got your battery grip for a Canon 6D in the mail, but now what do you do?

If you notice, on the right hand side of the battery grip, there is a small tab that you will have to pull down and twist to open the compartment. In the compartment, there is a tray to hold two batteries. Insert the batteries into the tray, making sure that the metal part of the battery is in contact with the metal on the tray. After loading them, slide it back into the battery grip and secure the tab into place again.

It’s so useful to have a battery grip because not only does it add some weight to your camera to stabilize it, but it also gives you two batteries, so you can shoot twice as long. Now, take your camera and open the battery compartment. If you notice, there is a tiny black square that is a lever, pull it forward to take the door off. One of the brilliant things that the battery grip has is a storage compartment on the side to store the battery door and even has a picture to show you where to put it. Once you find where the door goes, snap it into the side of your battery grip so you don’t lose it!

Next, take your battery grip and insert it into the bottom of the camera. Since it will be loose at first, locate the dial and screw it in.

Now that it’s together, what do you do?

I suggest turning it off when you are not taking pictures. The main reason you’d want to turn it off is for when you’re walking around with the camera swinging on the side of you. You could be hitting these buttons and taking pictures. So, leave it on while you’re taking pictures, but while you’re not taking pictures, turn it off.

The nice thing about this grip is that you can shoot vertically or horizontally. These three buttons are going to work exactly as they do on the back of your camera. So, if you have back button focus programmed on one of those, you can focus back here, you can change your focus points, whatever these three on your camera are programmed for, this will work exactly the same.