6D's Wifi Drain on Battery (?)

[MichaelTheMaven]

When I turn my GPS feature on in my 6D, the battery drains very quickly. I can turn the GPS on, set my camera down, come back in an hour and half the battery is gone.

Are any other 6D owners seeing this?

M

 

[hemidesign]

Might be.. looks like my PSP (Playstation portable) when the WI-FI is on.. drain all the battery, really fast.. I mean, twice's fast! :-\

 

[scrup]

Same on a smartphone. GPS sucks alot of juice more than wifi. It's to be expected. Maybe a firmware update can change the way it works and has less frequent satellite requests.

 

[Botts]

Most Panasonic Lumix's with GPS have a feature where the GPS turns off when the camera is powered down. They call it "Airplane Mode" strangely enough. When the camera is switched on, the GPS kicks back in.

If it's a warm-fix, the time delay is quite small, if you've moved a lot and caused it to have to do a cold-fix the time is quite a bit longer.

The 6D's GPS appears to pull location non-stop until the GPS receiver is turned off, not if the body is switched off. Therefore, if you are storing your 6D, you should turn off GPS before switching it off. I plan on testing mine for battery life in detail over the next few days.

 

[Marsu42]

When I turn my GPS feature on in my 6D, the battery drains very quickly.

Sadly, that was to be expected - the gps feature probably is just a gimmick because they've got a combined wifi/gps chip, and the gps doesn't even record the camera direction.

Smartphones are bound to be more optimized than this, but for a dumb device you'd better turn gps off in difficult situations where the gps unit desperately tried so get a lock draining constant power - indoors, between skyscapers, in the woods on cloudy days... just get a $50 external gps tagger instead that is more precise and has a 24h battery.

 

[daniela]

Of course, the GPS needs much power!

I tried the 6D with the Canon batterygrip. So, if you use the GPS (I did not, I only tried the WiFi function), you should fetch this BG. It is about 350$/270E. Or you wait until an chinese company will copy one.

With the WiFi funtion on, the power consumption is ok.

Maybe you can tell me, how fast the GPS finds the position?

 

[Botts]

Acquisition time is actually not bad. It's been within 30 seconds when I have been outside.

Prior to the 6D, I used my old blackberry with the cell-radio turned off as a GPS logger. I'm hoping I don't need to do this anymore, but I'll need to take a trip to Disneyland to really find out Disneyland will really show how fast it regrabs GPS after leaving a building or ride.

 

[Ryan_W]

When I turn my GPS feature on in my 6D, the battery drains very quickly.

Smartphones are bound to be more optimized than this, but for a dumb device you'd better turn gps off in difficult situations.

It's been my experience that any GPS application is a rapid battery drain. Even an hour car trip on a top line Android with GPS enabled the entire time can drop you down to 50%.

The GPS feature on the 6D is kind of a bonus but I don't think I will use it. Maybe it would be useful to tag the first photo of a set to mark them, but in all honesty, it's just as easy to tag your own images and excepting industrial applications for Long/Lat in a consumer level camera, I don't see the point.

However I'm glad someone brought up the grip - It's my opinion that two batteries (one acting as a critical spare) is a bare minimum. Why not add the joystick plus the extra grip and add the option to use AA's?

 

[Badger]

Got my 6D yesterday. Gave the battery a full charge then turned on GPS and WiFi. I have not used the camera much in 36 hours. Probably shot about 30 pictures, a five minute movie, then played with the iPhone EOS app, viewing, erasing, playing (thanks for the tutorial Mike). I have had to turn WiFi off to shoot movies, but I have always turned it right back on.
So, 36 hours of very light playing and the GPS being constantly on in my bag, my battery life is showing about 75% available. I honestly had no idea that the GPS stayed on while the camera is turned off. While it doesn't seem to me that GPS is draining the battery quickly, its good to know for those of us who don't use their cameras everyday, we might need to recharge before using the camera next time (or just turn the damn thing off )

 

[Area256]

Just tried turning on the GPS and left it on for an hour. I have the update frequency set to 30 seconds. The battery dropped by just 2% according to the camera. I'm inside a house, and for the first little bit it couldn't get a fix, but it locked on after a few minutes. (outside the time to lock is about 30 seconds, not sure yet how accurate it is.)

I haven't tested the WiFi battery life, but my experience has been that using it actively causes the camera to heat up a lot. Which explains why the 6D has more electrical shielding than other cameras in it's class.

 

[Marsu42]

I haven't tested the WiFi battery life, but my experience has been that using it actively causes the camera to heat up a lot. Which explains why the 6D has more electrical shielding than other cameras in it's class.

Did you test the wifi range yet? That would be interesting esp. for outdoors, the stronger shielding (simply by the camera body) might decrease the range a lot. Maybe they should have added a plug for an external antenna

 

[PeOR]

I have my GPS refresh on 5 minutes. At that setting the battery seems to last about a week. Since it is a button that starts/stops the GPS function but you have to access the menu, it actually does not feel like a well thought through solution. I am expecting a firmware option that powers the GPS down when the power is off. That is the only "solid" option. Except for that, the camera is truly awesome. I love it.

PeO.

 

[prjkt]

Turn off the logging feature - that keeps track of your journey even if the camera is switched off.

As for accuracy, it showed me as 17m above sea level, while my feet were been lapped by waves at the beach

 

[MintMark]

The elevation is the least accurate aspect of GPS in general and I think the manual does mention it.

Sea level is not an absolute concept either... are you sure they weren't 17m waves?

 

[Heavyweight67]

Have to agree with Marsu on this one, all those extras that manufacturers seem to add on for our convenience just draw that power that is essential for what this (Canon 6D ) is designed to do, that is take pictures...

Sometimes the gimmicks (added extras) may seem appealing but they soon loose their lustre, when you're walking back home without any photos...(at least you will have a track log so you can see where you didn't take photos)

As a light room user, I can download track logs from my GPS or smartphone, this is my workaround....

 

[Don Haines]

As a light room user, I can download track logs from my GPS or smartphone, this is my workaround....

Did not know you could do this.... Will have to give it a try.....

Always learning new things on this forum! Thanks!

 

[Area256]

I used the 6D for some travel photography last week. I found the GPS power drain (with update frequency of 30 seconds), to be quite acceptable. I shot about 200 pictures a day, left the GPS on for about 8 hours of the time, and the battery level would be around 60% by the end of the day.

WiFi on the other hand will eat through batter life fairly fast if you leave it on constantly connected to a Smartphone. However for the times it's needed, it comes in very handy, and it means I didn't need to take a remote release.

 

[prjkt]

The elevation is the least accurate aspect of GPS in general and I think the manual does mention it.

Sea level is not an absolute concept either... are you sure they weren't 17m waves?

That's a good point, I didn't check the exact coords - might try that now, no the waves were at the tallest about 30-40cm - calm Port Philip Bay weather

 

[Lord_Zeppelin]

I think my 6D may be defective. I have the GPS and Wifi off, and I've shot about a total of 19 photos on the current charge, and with the camera sitting off in my bag for 3 days, the battery is stone cold dead. I'm using the OEM battery that was included with the cam, and another Canon LP-E6 that I picked up from Amazon (not third party seller either, so it's a legit canon battery).

I've had my Tamron 24-70 F2.8 on the camera the entire time. I've read where people have some issues with the 5D3 and third party lenses, so I hope that's not the case, as I love the lens and prefer to leave it on the body...

EDIT~ As an update to my original post, apparently there is a well-documented issue with the Tamron 24-70/2.8 and the newer Canon bodies, like the T4i and 6D, where the lens drains the battery even if the camera is off. Mine battery showed 98% charge, and then after sitting for roughly 2 hours, completely off, it's down to 91%. So I put my Canon 50mm/1.4 on it, and let it sit for 2 hours...and it's still at 91%.

The POTN forum post I saw regarding the T4i said Tamron knows about it and will exchange the lens with one that doesn't drain the battery. I friggin hope so, cause I'm loving the quality on this lens.

 

[oscaroo]

EDIT~ As an update to my original post, apparently there is a well-documented issue with the Tamron 24-70/2.8 and the newer Canon bodies, like the T4i and 6D, where the lens drains the battery even if the camera is off. Mine battery showed 98% charge, and then after sitting for roughly 2 hours, completely off, it's down to 91%. So I put my Canon 50mm/1.4 on it, and let it sit for 2 hours...and it's still at 91%.

Wow!
That's shoddy.

I was keen on that lens but now I'm staying away.