7D Battery Life

I've gotten the feeling that my 7D battery life isn't all that great compared to my previous 50D. Up until now I didn't have anything to go off of other than a gut feeling. Problem is I had been chimping a lot because of other issues with a lens/camera that I didn't have an accurate feel to how many shots I could get.

Well I took it out of my bag and was surprised to see the battery very low because I would normally have charged it if that was the case. So I dropped in a fully charged battery (this one is generic "wasabi power" brand you can find on amazon) and I left it on my desk at 99%. I came back to it this morning...maybe 12 hours later and its now at 90%. I did leave the switch in the on position but the camera is set to auto off in 2-4 minutes I believe.

This sounds excessive to me. I turned it fully off and am going to see how far it drops while I am at work. Then I'll repeat the test with the original Canon battery. Neither battery has felt better than the other to me which makes me wonder if something isn't chewing up my battery life.

My 7D's battery seems to last forever. I have so much confidence in it now that I hardly ever check it. This winter I shot at the Canada Winter Games, maybe 1000 shots a day, and on the heaviest shooting day (outside, sub-freezing temps) the battery went down to 83%. I even bought a spare battery just for the Games event to make sure I had all the power I needed, and in the end I didn't need to spend all that money.

I let my 7D sit on my shelf for weeks with the same battery and have minimal change in status. I just put a fresh one in yesterday, before that it was at least since St. Patrick's day.

One battery will last me an entire wedding when I was shooting with the 7D as a primary body. Maybe ditch the generic e-bay/amazon batteries.

Sdiver2489 wrote in post #12287682
(this one is generic "wasabi power" brand you can find on amazon)

I have a feeling that this is your problem.

I'm going to drop in my Canon battery here before work and see if it does the same thing. I'll leave it on (so that it uses the auto-off) which in my experience has been just as good as turning the camera off. If this still drains the battery I'll have to see if it does it when the power switch is fully off

csshih wrote in post #12287722
I have a feeling that this is your problem.

This is what I was going to say word for word...

not all 3rd party battery makers aren't all great & reliable... some will advertise a mah that's just not right....

I have a pair of phottix that seem to be able to keep up with my Canons... I run them in grips, and I usually swap out at around 800 shots each, with about 20% left, if I'm doing a wedding, and then use them up some more for personal stuff

As info, two freshly charged OEM batteries in the grip on my 7D would shoot 3 basketball games, maybe 4 if I pushed it. I'd probably shoot 300-400 images per game. Maybe more when you consider high-speed shooting during layups and dunks.

Frankly, I was amazed at the battery life of the two OEM batteries!

dave

My Battery Rocks I have charge my Batt's about once every 3 Months and have never fun them down .

Any of you guys leave your camera "on" all the time and utilize the auto-off feature? Like I said, I'm testing my canons ability in this mode right now but I'd be surprised to see it significantly different because I had been using the Canon and it also felt short.

A bunch of people including me hardly ever turn the camera into the off position. It's simply not needed. I have my camera set to turn off after 2 minutes. Then I just press the shutter next time I want to shoot, no need to flip a switch at all.

Sdiver2489 wrote in post #12287869
Any of you guys leave your camera "on" all the time and utilize the auto-off feature? Like I said, I'm testing my canons ability in this mode right now but I'd be surprised to see it significantly different because I had been using the Canon and it also felt short.

No - I don't see any point in leaving it "on" when I know it's going to be stored in a bag for a couple of days.

In an earlier thread some time back another member had a similar issue. There was never any consensus as to what the real issue was, but there was a suspicion that the preview button on the camera's back was being bumped while in the case. Things were packed pretty tightly and this was a possibility as he was walking and the bag would get periodically bumped.

If I'm doing a wedding shoot though I will leave it on during the day.

One issue with leaving it "On" all the time is that the sensor cleaning cycle would seldom be run. I used to have to clean my sensor regularly when I had a 30D, but with my old 40D and my current 7D, encompassing multiple years and thousands and thousands of exposures, I have never once had a problem with sensor dust. Not once. I have not changed my lens-changing practices, nor the environments in which I shoot (primarily out in the field shooting wildlife), so I am willing to chalk this up to the sensor cleaning that runs when you power up and power down.

I do leave my camera "On" during any one day of shooting, and I don't believe that doing so uses much battery power, but I always power down when I'm done.

Anyone want to be my best friend and leave a freshly charged Canon battery in their 7D and leave it on for say...9-12 hours(with autooff enabled) and tell me their battery life (%) after this period? It'd help to know what I should be expecting battery drain wise in this position. Like I said, I think my 50D did very well here, and I'm a little surprised to be charging the 7D battery so often that I feel like their could be an issue.

2 batteries in my grip, both OEM Canon..

I've shot 2 events in the last couple of weekends, with roughly 5-600 shots in total. The camera was driving stabilised lenses both times. Both batteries have remained uncharged in the camera for the week in between events. Both are currently showing 66% charged.

I'd never even heard of wasabi batteries. That's how awesome they are.