Michael Clark

Now we see through a glass, darkly...
Apr 5, 2016
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Do you drive in your local area at night with your lights off because you know the road?
I'd love to have backlit buttons, when I need them.

Your windshield is like your viewfinder. Your shooting control buttons are like your accelerator and brake pedals. Do you need the floor of you car illuminated to know where the gas pedal and brake pedal are? Perhaps your review/setup/menu buttons are like the ones on your dash.

Just for what is is worth. At one point in my life I drove commercial vehicles for a living. It was not unusual to spend 60 hours a week driving mostly at night. I tended to turn the dash light dimmer down to almost nothing to reduce the distraction of the dash lights reflecting off the cab windows. If not for the need to see and monitor the many temperature gauges (two differential temps, transmission temp, exhaust temp, water temp, oil temp, etc), air pressure gauges (main reservoir, secondary reservoir, service line, emergency line), manifold pressure gauges, speedometer, and tachometer, I'd have turned them all of the way down. Different windshield angles and door window angles in large trucks make a difference in that respect compared to cars that have very sloped windshields and moderately sloped side windows. If you don't think your side windows are sloped, roll them down while sitting still in the rain and see how much falls into your car, even when there is no wind blowing! After the first 20,000 miles or so in a new truck model (in a couple of months), you learn where all of the switches are by feel, even though large trucks have a lot more switches than most cars do. They are not quite airplanes in that respect, but there are a lot more things to turn on/off or up/down than with cars.
 
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Michael Clark

Now we see through a glass, darkly...
Apr 5, 2016
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Thanks for pointing out the basics for me lol !

Ever since your slightly silly reply to my original post you have been furiously backpedaling and attempting to win an non existent argument, you are saying your perfect and know where every button on your camera is even in the dark - well good for you, I am not pretending to be perfect and find the buttons quite close together and very easy to hit the wrong one in the dark hence the touchscreen is great.

If i had an option then i would love Canon to make a 5d aimed at my needs , forget all the video stuff and remove all that internally and its buttons free up some space between the buttons for a start , backlight the buttons especially the top and ae * lock section etc that we use for fast changing - and when i say backlight i mean dimly not bright green. Better battery life would also be great.

Oh and my hand is not always resting on my camera , I use two bodies one holstered which i frequently swap between, carry checklists of group shots, direct people and assistants and much more meaning i dont have my hand on the buttons all the time and if you did that you would just end up with a claw hand anyway.

Something of a juxtaposition too someone who drives a Tesla questioning using touch screens backlights etc ! and if your car only has one single touch screen and no buttons what on earth do you do if the touchscreen fails, get a taxi ?

Using the lit touchscreen to change settings will use more battery. That's just the price one pays for doing it that way.

It might explain why you are seeing lower battery life than someone who uses the same settings or changes them with the buttons and rarely chimps images.

If that's the way you want to do it, that's fine for you. But don't expect better battery life if you are using your energy consuming screen more than others are.
 
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Michael Clark

Now we see through a glass, darkly...
Apr 5, 2016
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.....and, again, for whatever it is worth, 48 hrs of my Canon 5DIV in "sleep" but turned on the battery report is 93%. Very slightly better than being turned "off" but likely not meaningful.

It's very likely that if you left the freshly charged batteries out of the camera for two days and then inserted them, turned the camera on-off-on (to reset the chip in the battery), and then checked the battery level they would also be at around 93-94-95 percent. Freshly charged Li-Ion batteries lose the top 5-7% or so fairly quickly, even when on a shelf. As the battery ages, it loses even more fairly early before stabilizing to a much lower discharge rate when not being used. I've got 4-5 year old Li-Ion batteries that drop from 100% immediately after charging to around 65% in only a couple of days. They do this whether inserted in a camera or not.
 
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Ozarker

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Why I don't want back-lit buttons: because I don't take my eye away from the viewfinder when using the buttons on my camera. Why should I want to pay more for something that a) drains the batteries faster and b) that I wouldn't use?

That's the beauty of it. When the camera with back lit buttons gets released, don't buy it. I'd pay $50 extra for the feature. $75 if they'll use color shifting LEDs.

You don't have to want to pay more for the feature... but you will. I'll sleep well knowing I am being subsidized. ;)
 
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docsmith

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Sep 17, 2010
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It's very likely that if you left the freshly charged batteries out of the camera for two days and then inserted them, turned the camera on-off-on (to reset the chip in the battery), and then checked the battery level they would also be at around 93-94-95 percent. Freshly charged Li-Ion batteries lose the top 5-7% or so fairly quickly, even when on a shelf. As the battery ages, it loses even more fairly early before stabilizing to a much lower discharge rate when not being used. I've got 4-5 year old Li-Ion batteries that drop from 100% immediately after charging to around 65% in only a couple of days. They do this whether inserted in a camera or not.

I have not used my 5DIV this past week, so still 0 shots on this battery. Now it is at 51% (battery from 2016). All I've done is turn on the camera to check the battery 6 days ago, so a total of 8 days since I fully charged it or ~6% per day drain.

As for batteries not in the camera, I have several back up batteries. Inserting those into my 5DIV just now:
  • 67% - Recharged in November or December (Battery bought in June 2018)
  • 78% - Recharged in November or December (from 2017)
  • 64% - Recharged around June and has been in a rarely used backpack since (oldest battery, bought in 2013)
I'll charge them up and put the newest battery in camera and check this out.
 
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Yes, after initially being skeptical I made the switch (from 3 to 4) and the 4 is definitely a pleasure to use. A large majority of the usability gripes I had with the 5D3 were addressed in the 5D4. I agree with your points except for the one below:

Shutter noise even in silent shutter mode is now louder than the 5D3 was , not massively but enough to notice especially during weddings.

Interesting, as I found the 5D4 shutter sound to be noticably QUIETER than the 5D3's - in fact, enough so that I felt the 5D4's normal mode was more or less equivalent to the 5D3's silent mode! The 5D3 had a loud CLACK to it every time a pic was snapped, while the 5D4 just has a softer CLICK sound.

The AF is a bit more consistent (while still far from perfect), which I appreciate. On the negative side, I find the 5D4 images in general need more PP work than 5D3 images did. Mostly in USM/sharpness tweaking and color adjustments...
 
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docsmith

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Sep 17, 2010
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It's very likely that if you left the freshly charged batteries out of the camera for two days and then inserted them, turned the camera on-off-on (to reset the chip in the battery), and then checked the battery level they would also be at around 93-94-95 percent. Freshly charged Li-Ion batteries lose the top 5-7% or so fairly quickly, even when on a shelf. As the battery ages, it loses even more fairly early before stabilizing to a much lower discharge rate when not being used. I've got 4-5 year old Li-Ion batteries that drop from 100% immediately after charging to around 65% in only a couple of days. They do this whether inserted in a camera or not.

I need to pack up my camera so I am ending this at ~60 hrs.

My 2018 battery that was in the 5DIV with camera "off": 88%
Batteries from 2016 and 2017 that were not in camera: 99%
Battery from 2013 that was not in the camera: 100%.

Overall, I see this all the time. A battery sitting in my 5DIV loses its charge at a concerning rate. Fortunately, this is not much of a problem as I always have a backup, and rarely does my camera sit very long unused.
 
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Michael Clark

Now we see through a glass, darkly...
Apr 5, 2016
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I need to pack up my camera so I am ending this at ~60 hrs.

My 2018 battery that was in the 5DIV with camera "off": 88%
Batteries from 2016 and 2017 that were not in camera: 99%
Battery from 2013 that was not in the camera: 100%.

Overall, I see this all the time. A battery sitting in my 5DIV loses its charge at a concerning rate. Fortunately, this is not much of a problem as I always have a backup, and rarely does my camera sit very long unused.

Did you do an on-off-on cycle with the batteries that had been on the shelf? It has been my experience with older batteries that pretty much everything will read 99-100% when first inserted in a camera after having been in a charger. But after the camera actually measures the voltage (instead of reading the chip that says "just charged to 100%") the numbers will often be significantly lower if the battery has been on a shelf for a while.
 
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Del Paso

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And too true, unfortunately. When I wrote that I was getting only 100 or so shots from my M5, others were getting up to 1000. I get only 400 shots with my 5DIV, whereas others get a 1000 and still 2/3rds left.

It's somehow reassuring not to be alone...
I get only (with the most energy-saving settings) about 280 picts with my Leica M 240, while everybody seems to be getting between 1200 and 2000 picts.
The camera was even tested twice by Leica, Wetzlar, the camera was OK for them.
I insisted, got it replaced, alas, #2 is just the same.:cry::unsure:
 
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docsmith

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Sep 17, 2010
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Did you do an on-off-on cycle with the batteries that had been on the shelf? It has been my experience with older batteries that pretty much everything will read 99-100% when first inserted in a camera after having been in a charger. But after the camera actually measures the voltage (instead of reading the chip that says "just charged to 100%") the numbers will often be significantly lower if the battery has been on a shelf for a while.
Just got back from a trip and did not use my 3 backup batteries. So I just looked and the 2016/2017 batteries were at 94% and the 2013 battery read 97%.

But, I think we are getting pretty into the weeds (although I do like testing and actual numbers). As a former 5DIII and 7D owner, I could pick up my camera and still have significant battery life even if I had not used it in weeks. I pick up my 5DIV after I haven't used it and I often have 40-70% battery life remaining.

That said, when shooting on a full battery, there are times when I can shoot >1000 shots on a single battery. Other times, ~400 shots. The only trend I have noticed is that anything using the screen tends to really affect the performance (live view/video).

But, overall, no complaints. I often sit here an think while reading some posts about Canon's dire future how I could likely shoot with my current kit for the foreseeable future and be very happy.
 
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