What's the normal battery drain for a 5D3 that's off?

[jabbott]

I have taken over 900 shots with mine and the battery is still about 40+ percent charged. Wonder what causes the difference? I guess we don't have to consider flash usage since the 5D family has none. LOL

I almost never use live view, do you use it a lot? I'm using non-stabilized lenses and no Eye-Fi card.

I rarely use Live View... I also rarely use stabilized lenses, and don't use an Eye-Fi card. I chimp but not excessively. It's puzzling. At first I thought it was because I spent a lot of time in the menus configuring the camera, but then the high battery drain behavior continued well after that. If the firmware update and hard reset don't help, I'll just send the camera into Canon as it's still under warranty for the next few months. From what I've read online, there are some folks who get great battery life from their 5D3 (some of which exceed 1,000 shots per charge) and others who only get mediocre battery life (300-600 shots per charge). I didn't realize until I wrote to Canon that the battery charger itself may be to blame. I may also try borrowing a friend's charger to see if it charges the batteries more.

 

[jabbott]

By the way, I found a Flickr discussion forum where a lot of people have had similar issues:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/canondslr/discuss/72157628002945669/

 

[Krob78]

I have taken over 900 shots with mine and the battery is still about 40+ percent charged. Wonder what causes the difference? I guess we don't have to consider flash usage since the 5D family has none. LOL

I almost never use live view, do you use it a lot? I'm using non-stabilized lenses and no Eye-Fi card.

I rarely use Live View... I also rarely use stabilized lenses, and don't use an Eye-Fi card. I chimp but not excessively. It's puzzling. At first I thought it was because I spent a lot of time in the menus configuring the camera, but then the high battery drain behavior continued well after that. If the firmware update and hard reset don't help, I'll just send the camera into Canon as it's still under warranty for the next few months. From what I've read online, there are some folks who get great battery life from their 5D3 (some of which exceed 1,000 shots per charge) and others who only get mediocre battery life (300-600 shots per charge). I didn't realize until I wrote to Canon that the battery charger itself may be to blame. I may also try borrowing a friend's charger to see if it charges the batteries more.

Is it possible that AI Servo could drain them more quickly? I do notice that often times I'm holding that back button down for a while at times, waiting for certain images... I do it with my 7d though too, it's also configured for back af-on button focusing on mine...

 

[jabbott]

Is it possible that AI Servo could drain them more quickly? I do notice that often times I'm holding that back button down for a while at times, waiting for certain images... I do it with my 7d though too, it's also configured for back af-on button focusing on mine...

I would think that AF Servo would consume a lot more battery power than One Shot AF. Garfield are you still there? To follow up to my previous posts, I did some shooting with the 5D3 this weekend for Easter and ended up with much better battery life, but I was shooting much more than usual rather than taking an occasional shot and letting the camera idle. I noticed this effect as well with my T2i - I was once able to get 2,000 shots on one battery, but I was doing rapid fire shots nearly constantly for a rock concert. I wish the 5D3 had a smaller time period setting for auto power off, such as 5 seconds instead of a minute. For now I just shut off the camera after each shot when I'm shooting periodically.

 

[JonAustin]

I wish the 5D3 had a smaller time period setting for auto power off, such as 5 seconds instead of a minute. For now I just shut off the camera after each shot when I'm shooting periodically.

Per the measurements made by Garfield, you aren't really gaining anything by switching the camera off, rather than just letting it idle. In fact -- particularly if you have sensor cleaning set to engage each time you switch the camera on and off -- you may be discharging your battery more than you would by just letting the idle timer do its job after each 1 minute period of no activity.

 

[jm977]

I would think that over the years, for the most part discussion about batteries has been pretty much covered. However, I appreciate all who took a few minutes to talk about them here. If it hadn't been for my unexpected long time where I did not do any shooting, I probably would have gone on without a care about battery life but in case anyone's interested, I did hear from Canon regarding the matter.
So, according to Canon, they don't have any specific data on how long a battery will go until dead while it sits in your camera on your shelf unused. They do of course recommend you don't store your camera for long with the battery in it and I wouldn't but unexpected circumstances struck me. Anyway, with six days of leaving my 7D and 5D3 unused with fully charged batteries (difficult to do now that I'm back in the game), the 7D reports 98% charged and the 5D3 97% charged. Canon agrees (though they don't have "data" on normal) that this appears normal as any time they've seen real problems, it's because the battery has gone down drastically in far less time.
While it's only a matter of a few percentages, it's just another reason to charge em before you use em I guess. Now, on to using the darn cameras instead of wasting time looking at battery percentages !

 

[Hugo Fisher]

I do simply over 2500 pictures per single charge of an original 5D3 battery. The record which I had was over 2700 pictures..

I think that 5D3 battery is just amazing. I am not switching the camera off between shots or something. I just do not look at every picture which I had taken. Because I do not need to.

 

[Krob78]

Is it possible that AI Servo could drain them more quickly? I do notice that often times I'm holding that back button down for a while at times, waiting for certain images... I do it with my 7d though too, it's also configured for back af-on button focusing on mine...

I would think that AF Servo would consume a lot more battery power than One Shot AF. Garfield are you still there? To follow up to my previous posts, I did some shooting with the 5D3 this weekend for Easter and ended up with much better battery life, but I was shooting much more than usual rather than taking an occasional shot and letting the camera idle. I noticed this effect as well with my T2i - I was once able to get 2,000 shots on one battery, but I was doing rapid fire shots nearly constantly for a rock concert. I wish the 5D3 had a smaller time period setting for auto power off, such as 5 seconds instead of a minute. For now I just shut off the camera after each shot when I'm shooting periodically.

I think that's it in my situation. I think the AI servo combined with the more powerful AF system must be draining my system quicker. The 7d AF is good but not nearly as powerful as the one on my 5d3, based on my keeper rate. I'm doing a lot of sports and bif, so I'm pressing that back button AF a lot... combined with the IS, I suppose thats the answer... I went out this last weekend and tried to let go of the AF button more and noticed a difference in the number of images I was able to take on the one battery... Enjoyed the post. ;D

 

[Skirball]

For the record I noticed the same thing on my 6D. My 400D with old generic batteries last longer. But the camera is new so I've been playing with live view and wifi and whatnot and just fiddling with setups, so I attributed it to that.

One thing that could explain the large variance people are getting is how much people chimp and if you turn off the screen or keep it on the info screen when you shoot.

 

[Rienzphotoz]

I have the same problem, battery drains within 4 or 5 days without any use ... But this only happens if I charge the battery with the charger that came with 5D MK III which is meant for USA switches (I bought my 5D MK III from USA but I love in Middle East) ... but when I use the old 60D charger to charge the battery than there is no problem.

 

[Skirball]

I have the same problem, battery drains within 4 or 5 days without any use ... But this only happens if I charge the battery with the charger that came with 5D MK III which is meant for USA switches (I bought my 5D MK III from USA but I love in Middle East) ... but when I use the old 60D charger to charge the battery than there is no problem.

Well that's interesting. Do the new ones trickle charge after the green light comes on? Or maybe just stopping early? Neuro, come edumacate us on the inner workings of the Canon chargers, past and present!

 

[Krob78]

I have the same problem, battery drains within 4 or 5 days without any use ... But this only happens if I charge the battery with the charger that came with 5D MK III which is meant for USA switches (I bought my 5D MK III from USA but I love in Middle East) ... but when I use the old 60D charger to charge the battery than there is no problem.

Well that's interesting. Do the new ones trickle charge after the green light comes on? Or maybe just stopping early? Neuro, come edumacate us on the inner workings of the Canon chargers, past and present!

Hmm, that's interesting...

 

[jabbott]

Per the measurements made by Garfield, you aren't really gaining anything by switching the camera off, rather than just letting it idle. In fact -- particularly if you have sensor cleaning set to engage each time you switch the camera on and off -- you may be discharging your battery more than you would by just letting the idle timer do its job after each 1 minute period of no activity.

I disabled auto sensor cleaning for that very reason. When I was in Nepal for three weeks last year without ready access to power for recharging, I found that doing this and shutting the 5D3 off after shooting seemed better than letting it auto power-down. Then again, perhaps shutting it off just prevented me from tinkering with it and needlessly engaging AF. The CIPA standard (found at http://www.cipa.jp/english/hyoujunka/kikaku/pdf/DC-002_e.pdf) assumes one shot taken every 30 seconds, with a powerdown/powerup every 10 shots. The 5D3 is CIPA-rated at 950 shots, so that equates to approximately eight hours of continuous use. I was able to shoot a few hundred shots over a few days on one battery, so it doesn't seem so bad in comparison. Interestingly, the CIPA standard doesn't prescribe a power off time, they just say it should be an amount of time which doesn't change measurement results. So to the OP, it looks like the camera companies may measure off-mode battery drain, but only to determine at what point it isn't detrimental to the battery performance that they report.

 

[Rienzphotoz]

I have the same problem, battery drains within 4 or 5 days without any use ... But this only happens if I charge the battery with the charger that came with 5D MK III which is meant for USA switches (I bought my 5D MK III from USA but I love in Middle East) ... but when I use the old 60D charger to charge the battery than there is no problem.

Well that's interesting. Do the new ones trickle charge after the green light comes on? Or maybe just stopping early? Neuro, come edumacate us on the inner workings of the Canon chargers, past and present!

Hmm, that's interesting...

Interesting indeed ... I am not sure if it has anything to do with it being an American power compatible charger or if it is the charger itself ... I'm waiting for a friend of mine to come back from his holidays to test if his 5D MK III charger (also bought from USA) does the same thing.

 

[Krob78]

I have the same problem, battery drains within 4 or 5 days without any use ... But this only happens if I charge the battery with the charger that came with 5D MK III which is meant for USA switches (I bought my 5D MK III from USA but I love in Middle East) ... but when I use the old 60D charger to charge the battery than there is no problem.

Well that's interesting. Do the new ones trickle charge after the green light comes on? Or maybe just stopping early? Neuro, come edumacate us on the inner workings of the Canon chargers, past and present!

Hmm, that's interesting...

Interesting indeed ... I am not sure if it has anything to do with it being an American power compatible charger or if it is the charger itself ... I'm waiting for a friend of mine to come back from his holidays to test if his 5D MK III charger (also bought from USA) does the same thing.

I charge my 5d3 batteries in my 7d charger...

 

[Rienzphotoz]

I have the same problem, battery drains within 4 or 5 days without any use ... But this only happens if I charge the battery with the charger that came with 5D MK III which is meant for USA switches (I bought my 5D MK III from USA but I love in Middle East) ... but when I use the old 60D charger to charge the battery than there is no problem.

Well that's interesting. Do the new ones trickle charge after the green light comes on? Or maybe just stopping early? Neuro, come edumacate us on the inner workings of the Canon chargers, past and present!

Hmm, that's interesting...

Interesting indeed ... I am not sure if it has anything to do with it being an American power compatible charger or if it is the charger itself ... I'm waiting for a friend of mine to come back from his holidays to test if his 5D MK III charger (also bought from USA) does the same thing.

I charge my 5d3 batteries in my 7d charger...

... and I charge it with 60D charger now