my new 5D3 battery life

[andres5d3]

hello everyone, i am new to 5d3, just got it two weeks ago...noticed the battery after 2.5 hours charge according to the manual, i am only getting about 100 shots or so the battery life drops to 67% (24-105 was used, no live view or long exposure, had power savings ever 8 mins)...yesterday had about 20 shots, battery dropped to 94% (using various of 40, 50, 24-105, no live view or long exposure)

thou some canon users i have met will always charge new batteries of 12 hours, is this a good idea at all? wouldn't this actually kill the battery's life even more? a fashion photographer i met at a bird walk, he said he could get 1500-2000 shots using the 24-105 in which i am amazed by it...what's your battery life experience?

when compared to the xsi i still have, single original canon battery for that gets about 700-800 shots, this seems battery issue? i have sent email to canon and was asked to try with a different battery and if not available, send the camera and battery to canon toronto for a checkup...that also means i will have to pay for shipping plus i will be out of a camera for the next little while, what's their usual turnaround time anyway?

any reply appreciated...

- andre

 

[rpt]

hello everyone, i am new to 5d3, just got it two weeks ago...noticed the battery after 2.5 hours charge according to the manual, i am only getting about 100 shots or so the battery life drops to 67% (24-105 was used, no live view or long exposure, had power savings ever 8 mins)...yesterday had about 20 shots, battery dropped to 94% (using various of 40, 50, 24-105, no live view or long exposure)

thou some canon users i have met will always charge new batteries of 12 hours, is this a good idea at all? wouldn't this actually kill the battery's life even more? a fashion photographer i met at a bird walk, he said he could get 1500-2000 shots using the 24-105 in which i am amazed by it...what's your battery life experience?

when compared to the xsi i still have, single original canon battery for that gets about 700-800 shots, this seems battery issue? i have sent email to canon and was asked to try with a different battery and if not available, send the camera and battery to canon toronto for a checkup...that also means i will have to pay for shipping plus i will be out of a camera for the next little while, what's their usual turnaround time anyway?

any reply appreciated...

- andre

I once took about 2100 pictures at a lake shooting migratory birds and I recall changing the battery about 3/4 ths of the way. So well over a thousand. I am guessing 1200 a 1400.

Change it. It is obviously faulty.

Edit: Since alexanderferdenand mentioned, my shots were all shot with the 100-400 on. My review time is 1 or 2 seconds and I hardly looked at the pictures till I was done two hours later...

 

[alexanderferdinand]

Without looking at the shot on the LCD: over 1000 shot minimum. With looking at every shot, depends how long btw, 500 apr.
Loading: keep a Lion- accu between 40 and 80%, this is its comfort zone.

 

[distant.star]

.
First red flag for me is your saying "power savings ever 8 mins." I'm guessing that means you have Auto Power Off set to eight minutes. Canon default is one minute. The manual says, "To save battery power, the camera turns off automatically after 1 minute of non-operation. To turn on the camera again, just press the shutter button halfway."

What's the point of eight minutes? When the shutter button is pressed halfway, it's instantly on.

First thing I would do is go back to the one minute default and see if that settles the issue.

If not, I'd get a new battery -- you should have a backup anyway and it's cheaper than shipping the camera off to Canon. Charge the new battery overnight (at least that's my practice). See if it performs differently. If performance is poor with a new battery, then have Canon look at the camera.

One other thing -- you mention using different lenses in an apparently short time. Are you changing lenses with the camera on? I don't know if that's an issue, but I wouldn't do it.

I've never had a battery problem with the 5D3. It easily goes to 1000 or more shots. I keep the one-minute power off setting, and I also turn off the auto review. If I need to see a picture, I'll summon it, but I don't need to look at most of them, and I don't need that LCD powered on a lot of the time.

 

[drmikeinpdx]

So far I have not had to change batteries during a shoot and I've gone a bit over 1,000 shots. Note that I don't use Live View, do you?

I'm not sure how accurate the battery condition report in the menu is. In any case, it is good practice to always carry a spare battery.

 

[alexanderferdinand]

Make a "Calibration". This means: one time load the battery, till its full, then use it, till the camera shuts down after ??? shots, doesnt matter with or without liveview, making video etc.
So the camera "know" the capacity.
Then the percentage of remainig power should be more exact.

But- as mentionend before- Lion cells dont like to be loaded full or empty, they like to be between 40 and 80% (loads of information is on the net).

A 1000 shots with one load is ok, I think.

 

[JPAZ]

FWIW, I have taken hundreds of shots on a battery that said it was less than 20%. I am not sure how useful the actual battery readings are other than to warn you to have your spare ready.

Also, I believe there is circuitry in the charger to prevent "over cooking" of the battery. When I recharge the battery, I just leave it for a while, sometimes overnight, unless I need to use that battery again quickly.

 

[Takuma]

Using the 6fps with short bursts I get more then 1000 shots per charge, using 70-200 or 100-400 with is on, no review time. Even when sorting out photos in between. Personal record so far was close to 2400 (remaining battery ~9%)

I've always charged my batteries until the charger said they were full and never had any problmes

 

[GuyF]

Most shots I've taken in a day was about 1300 and I still had maybe 30% left in the battery.

I often wonder if recharging a battery from, say, 70% back to 100% prior to an important shoot (rather than allowing it to discharge to around maybe 15% or lower) significantly shortens the lifespan. Any opinions (with some techie background to back up your claims!)?

 

[rpt]

I've always charged my batteries until the charger said they were full and never had any problmes

Same here. And that goes for my 5D3 batteries and the 300D batteries before that...

 

[tpatana]

Especially that "20 shots / 94%" is not good information. Battery capacity cannot be estimated that good, especially at the full end. So keep shooting until you get battery warning, and then if you don't get enough shots, you can start worrying.

I have grip with double batteries, and 2000+ is normal. Some amount of power save (1min setting), but total ~7-8h of shooting with small amount of chimping.

So one battery should give half of that.

 

[chauncey]

Hijack...compare battery life of the 5D3 to that of an elderly Dw3.