R5 battery life?

Can we get some posts from R5 owners about what their real world battery life is like with the older LP-E6N and the newer LP-E6NH batteries? I've been hearing battery life reports that are all over the place.

Ken Rockwell reported excellent battery life at 10,000 shots with a 3rd party LP-E6N Watson battery (seems unbelievable).
TechRadar reported excellent battery life at 2300+ shots with a LP-E6NH and EVF (unclear if 60 hz or 120 hz).
Random B&H review reported excellent battery life at 1800 shots with a LP-E6NH.
Random B&H review reported average battery life at 800 shots with a LP-E6NH.
Random Amazon review reported average battery life at 650 shots with a LP-E6NH, 120hz enabled, moderate chimping/menu usage.
PetaPixel reported poor battery life at 400 shots with a LP-E6NH and with GPS, WiFi, Dual Pixel, and AF Tracking turned off.

Why the wide variation in battery life? Does firmware v. 1.1 improve battery life at all?

Battery life is the biggest issue that's keeping me on the fence so far. Primarily interested in R5 for 90% photography, 10% video, average chimping.

Thanks!
 
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SteveC

R5
CR Pro
Sep 3, 2019
2,678
2,592
Can we get some posts from R5 owners about what their real world battery life is like with the older LP-E6N and the newer LP-E6NH batteries? I've been hearing battery life reports that are all over the place.

Ken Rockwell reported excellent battery life at 10,000 shots with a 3rd party LP-E6N Watson battery (seems unbelievable).
TechRadar reported excellent battery life at 2300+ shots with a LP-E6NH and EVF (unclear if 60 hz or 120 hz).
Random B&H review reported excellent battery life at 1800 shots with a LP-E6NH.
Random B&H review reported average battery life at 800 shots with a LP-E6NH.
Random Amazon review reported average battery life at 650 shots with a LP-E6NH, 120hz enabled, moderate chimping/menu usage.
PetaPixel reported poor battery life at 400 shots with a LP-E6NH and with GPS, WiFi, Dual Pixel, and AF Tracking turned off.

Why the wide variation in battery life? Does firmware v. 1.1 improve battery life at all?

Battery life is the biggest issue that's keeping me on the fence so far. Primarily interested in R5 for 90% photography, 10% video, average chimping.

Thanks!

Time spent looking through the viewfinder will have an effect, unlike with a DSLR. The only test that would be meaningful to you would be from someone who looks through it as much as you do.
 
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Joules

doom
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Jul 16, 2017
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Number of shots is not a great indicator of performance for these cameras. They are super fast and the main source of power drain is maintaining the EVF and / or LiveView. If you take a lot of bursts at 20 electronic, you'll get many more shots conpa9to somebody who spends a lot of time composing and only takes a picture occasionally. In both cases, I think the actual number of minutes spent using the camera would vary far less.

I would also suspect that IBIS has a pretty big impact, though I did not look into it yet.
 
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AlanF

Desperately seeking birds
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Aug 16, 2012
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Number of shots is not a great indicator of performance for these cameras. They are super fast and the main source of power drain is maintaining the EVF and / or LiveView. If you take a lot of bursts at 20 electronic, you'll get many more shots conpa9to somebody who spends a lot of time composing and only takes a picture occasionally. In both cases, I think the actual number of minutes spent using the camera would vary far less.

I would also suspect that IBIS has a pretty big impact, though I did not look into it yet.
I guarantee I will get less than anyone else - I get only a couple of hundred from a 5DIV as I use a battery draining 100-400mm II on it and stare down it while aiming and searching. On the other hand, if I get out my 90D and fire a 100 2s bursts at 10fps, it will hardly register on the battery meter. So, if I get only 200 on the R5 in non-high burst mode, I will not be surprised.
 
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Four hour session in my wildlife hide yesterday, 345 shots , no video , battery dead after 4 hours ! All max power saving options on, would be nice if I could even buy another battery !! Lens used 300mm f2.8 mkii on tripod, IS off, a fair bit of chimping which probably sucks the life out the battery :unsure:

Only 345 shots!! That might be the lowest shot count I've seen. Was IBIS turned on?
 
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As in original post IS off via lens , not sure if IBIS can be turned off I think the lens IS off disables it ?? I was shooting RAW , big files , maybe that drains battery also ?
I did shoot over 1000 images last week over two hours walking around the beach , plenty battery left, no chimping though
 
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Four hour session in my wildlife hide yesterday, 345 shots , no video , battery dead after 4 hours ! All max power saving options on, would be nice if I could even buy another battery !! Lens used 300mm f2.8 mkii on tripod, IS off, a fair bit of chimping which probably sucks the life out the battery :unsure:
Turning the camera off when nothing much is happening is a power saving option.
 
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zim

CR Pro
Oct 18, 2011
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Four hour session in my wildlife hide yesterday, 345 shots , no video , battery dead after 4 hours ! All max power saving options on, would be nice if I could even buy another battery !! Lens used 300mm f2.8 mkii on tripod, IS off, a fair bit of chimping which probably sucks the life out the battery :unsure:
Was it dead because you had it on for four hrs or because you took 345+chimp shots which happened to take you four hrs :unsure:
I presume you had IBIS off if you had IS off?
With a grip i really wouldn't want to carry more than 4 batteries, two morning, two afternoon. (airshows) sounds tight then again maybe the accuracy of that AF allows you to break the chimp habit!
 
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Was it dead because you had it on for four hrs or because you took 345+chimp shots which happened to take you four hrs :unsure:
I presume you had IBIS off if you had IS off?
With a grip i really wouldn't want to carry more than 4 batteries, two morning, two afternoon. (airshows) sounds tight then again maybe the accuracy of that AF allows you to break the chimp habit!
All power saving options were on, only powered up when taking shots , IS off via lens which = IBIS off
 
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HenryL

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Apr 1, 2020
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As others have already noted, this will vary greatly depending on usage. FWIW, my real-world sessions have mostly been with the 100-400 Mk II +1.4x III and I typically get 400-700 shots. I have had a few days were I got more, don't think I've ever had less.

To clarify a bit, last weekend I got approx 450 on a fresh LP-E6NH, that was one of my lowest but still fairly typical. Not too many bursts of more then 3-4 frames, but I was in a kayak so even when I wasn't tracking a bird in flight, the IBIS and lens IS were working overtime ALWAYS! If I'm just walking around the park or on a trail, I'll get better numbers, a couple of times over 800 but closer to 600 is the norm. Those sessions tend to have more bursts plus I'm shooting from a far more stable platform.

I shoot and review photos using the EVF, I've never enabled 120Hz mode, and the camera is still on ECO if that matters.

So, for me so far it's been variable but consistent enough where I'm getting an idea what to expect in different situations. Again, as has been said, YMMV.
 
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As others have already noted, this will vary greatly depending on usage. FWIW, my real-world sessions have mostly been with the 100-400 Mk II +1.4x III and I typically get 400-700 shots. I have had a few days were I got more, don't think I've ever had less.

To clarify a bit, last weekend I got approx 450 on a fresh LP-E6NH, that was one of my lowest but still fairly typical. Not too many bursts of more then 3-4 frames, but I was in a kayak so even when I wasn't tracking a bird in flight, the IBIS and lens IS were working overtime ALWAYS! If I'm just walking around the park or on a trail, I'll get better numbers, a couple of times over 800 but closer to 600 is the norm. Those sessions tend to have more bursts plus I'm shooting from a far more stable platform.

I shoot and review photos using the EVF, I've never enabled 120Hz mode, and the camera is still on ECO if that matters.

So, for me so far it's been variable but consistent enough where I'm getting an idea what to expect in different situations. Again, as has been said, YMMV.

400-700 is really disappointing, when I can get 1000-2000 on my EOS-R with moderate chimping.
 
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H. Jones

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Aug 1, 2014
803
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I pulled off around 2800 images on a 70% battery before it died while covering a house fire at night. 120hz high speed display, and pretty high brightness. Mainly remembered to turn the camera off between shots unless there was a lot of action going on, and all were shot at 12 fps. The camera turns on by the time you pull it up to your eye, so I never had any issue with the camera not being ready if it had been turned off.

I haven't had any issues with the battery life overall, I mainly just remember to swap batteries after every single shoot and I bring two spare LP-E6NH and one LP-E6N everywhere just in case.

As a bonus, you can charge the R5 while in operation using a power delivery USB-C power bank, which easily fits in a belt pack or pocket and would be easy to connect to charge while in a car, or during lulls in action. A power bank is also super easy to hang off a tripod for timelapses.
 
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koenkooi

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Feb 25, 2015
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As a bonus, you can charge the R5 while in operation using a power delivery USB-C power bank, which easily fits in a belt pack or pocket and would be easy to connect to charge while in a car, or during lulls in action. A power bank is also super easy to hang off a tripod for timelapses.

From previous reports it seems that you can mostly power the R5 using PD while it's in use, but it will drain the battery a bit. It will only charge the battery while the camera is powered off.

If it can actually charge the battery while it's in use, that would be very nice.
 
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This just came out this morning:


The upshot: the new LP-E6NH batteries don't give you much more capacity after initial wear (about 8 recharges). Benefit is all about communication with camera firmware in the new R5/R6.

-tig
 
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