EOS10D Battery Life

[BoySpot]

I wonder what sort of battery performance you 10D owners get when you are not shooting a lot at a time. I have seen plenty of posts about how many shots can be achieved in a day out when you are "trigger happy". I am more interested in how many shots are averaged when not using the camera so much.

If I don't use mine too intensely (which does happen some times) I find I don't get so many shots. I assume there is a steady drain from the camera (or a gradual natural reduction from the cells) which is the cause of this. if not, is there something wrong with my camera? (It is coming up towards a year old, hence my finally getting around to checking this out.)

Any information from those of you who are not shooting 2,000 shots a week would be gratefully received provided you are prepared to admit to it!!!

Thanks

[Persian-Rice]

Read your manual, it even says there is a steady drain when you don't use it. It recommends that you remove batteries when you don't use it.

[robertwgross]

There is a tiny drain on the battery when the camera is in "sleep mode". It isn't much. There is a slightly greater drain on the battery when it is "alive and ready". It doesn't take too much power to light up the exposure display inside the viewfinder, but the lens AF system will draw a little as the lens runs back and forth. If you use I.S. lenses, there is more drain there. There is considerably more power drain if you use the internal flash, and there is even more for each sensor "shot". The camera has to crunch a lot of ones and zeros, and then it has to write out the file to the CF card. Worse, when the rear display lights up with your image, that is a battery hog, and if you review your images for long periods afterward, that is big. Finally, if you connect your camera to the PC directly to transfer image files, that is another big battery hog.

If you look at each step of this, you can cut a lot of power waste out.

---Bob Gross---