Battery Grip Question

I was wondering something...
Does the 300D or 10D battery grip use each battery at the same time, thus wearing them out at the same time? Or does it use one battery, then when it's dead, switch to the other battery.

If it's the latter, does anybody know which compartment is used first?

Too much time on my hands methinks.

They deplete at the same time, not individually.

Buy one!! It's the best thing you can get for the Rebel!! Not only does it make the DRebel look cool but it makes the camera feel more balanced. I took mine off just to see how much I used it.. let's just say it wasn't off the camera more than 5 minutes!! I have shot 500+ pictures (about 50% of them flash) before the battery indicator shows half and you can shoot many more pictures on the rest of the battery!! Must have!!

The only time the battery grip comes off my 10D is when I am showing people what the camera looks like with it off. I would not ever go without it. I don't even know how many shots I can get before the batteries are exhausted - I have filled a 2G card with shots (JPEG hi), most with IS on, and lots of reviewing, histo checking, etc, and when I charged the batteries that night they were between 25% and 50% full.

I'll back up the earlier comment, at least as far as the 10D is concerned - both batteries discharge at the same time/rate. They are apparently connected in parallel to effectively make one larger battery.

BTW, the second battery is an aftermarket with slightly more mAH than the stock Canon battery - hasn't bothered me at all.

According to Chuck Westfall at Canon, the 300D and 10D grips draw from the stronger battery until they are equal, then draws from them both in parallel.

And that would argue against a simple parallel arrangement since a stronger battery would discharge into the weaker battery until they were both equal. The way Canon apparently did it is smarter.

i love my grip on the 10d... very comfortable now... i tried my cam without it and it felt very akward...

Same here (300D) the odd thing about it though is that when i first put the grip on it did not feel akward...this can only say one thing.

Grip on camera > no grip on camera

Thanks guys, that helps.
Btw, I've had a Grip on my 300D for months now.
It never leaves the camera.

The reason I was asking is because one battery is over a year old, the other is only 6 months old. When using a grip, if one battery starts to die, you may have a hard time knowing which one.

You can always test your batteries with a multimeter. :P

I thas been my finding that it uses one then the other. There is evidence in the way of charging time...one is practically untouched (3 blinks straight away) and the other takes a real long time to charge (1 blink straight away). It is hard to tell, I have seen it use both sides, and I recon it is the stronger of the 2. This is merely a hunch. That said, I have gone to some Power2000 1500MAH batteries available from B&H and they are great! I also added a 40X Lexar Card and would be SOL if shooting high subsonic aircraft at the IAT (Int'l Ait Tatoo) at Fairford last week, and for sure SOL at the Farnborough Airshow this weekend. I can't believe I blew thru better than 1,000 pics at IAT! I recon it will be about the same at Farnborough or more!!

This has been asked before (do a search) but I'm with Canuck on this one from my experience!

Barry

Really, would that work?

drisley as much as you pushed me to get it, I thought you had it!!!!

It was pretty tough to answear this one