7DMkII battery update

[Stakeouttoo]

I know there's another long thread below that I didn't want to add to with this...

have the 7DMkII for about 3 weeks now.. seems the battery is what's bugging me about it... all settings are at minimum hopefully using less power like LCD .. GPS disabled..no flash pics.. mainly just single shot pics.. on average seems that the stock battery is getting 400 shots on a charge down to 30%..

not into getting a battery grip .. have my 60d battery as a backup... seems those numbers should be better and to me are more of an annoyance.. bottomline.. might be a bit disappointed with it especially on our longer trips/cruises when we travel

anyone else getting better.. worse or about the same??

will call Canon this week to see what sweet-talk they give me about it..

 

[Dale Garman]

I haven't done any mathematical comparisons. I believe, but could be wrong, that these batteries improve after a few complete discharges and recharge. I had read that somewhere, and that seems to line up with my experience.

However, regardless it's not terrible, and the solution is simply to take an extra battery. They aren't large or heavy, and you can recharge at night. I travel quite a bit and have never had a problem if I have two batteries (although I carry 3 just to be safe). I just shot an event and used two batteries pretty well to the max but it is sure easier to carry an extra battery than a grip.

Anyway the features of the camera are more than worth any battery difference (if there is any) I have experienced so far at least for me.

 

[Phil Stone]

My post at http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3756783 might be helpful to you.

 

[Mark B.]

I agree, an extra LP-E6n is the way to go. It doesn't need to be the Canon version. My 7D II came with a Watson battery and so far it's done well. I've also used SterlingTek LP-E6 replacements in my 70D, and they have been good as well.

Mark

 

[MaxCh]

I know there's another long thread below that I didn't want to add to with this...

have the 7DMkII for about 3 weeks now.. seems the battery is what's bugging me about it... all settings are at minimum hopefully using less power like LCD .. GPS disabled..no flash pics.. mainly just single shot pics.. on average seems that the stock battery is getting 400 shots on a charge down to 30%..

not into getting a battery grip .. have my 60d battery as a backup... seems those numbers should be better and to me are more of an annoyance.. bottomline.. might be a bit disappointed with it especially on our longer trips/cruises when we travel

anyone else getting better.. worse or about the same??

will call Canon this week to see what sweet-talk they give me about it..

 

[Stakeouttoo]

my problem is.. why would Canon make a camera with battery life so low that you have to shut down most of its features..why have the features like GPS if you can't use it the way it was intended..

thanx for those replies and suggestions..

 

[MaxCh]

my problem is.. why would Canon make a camera with battery life so low that you have to shut down most of its features..why have the features like GPS if you can't use it the way it was intended..

thanx for those replies and suggestions..

 

[Mark B.]

my problem is.. why would Canon make a camera with battery life so low that you have to shut down most of its features..why have the features like GPS if you can't use it the way it was intended..

thanx for those replies and suggestions..

 

[Stakeouttoo]

GPS is a battery hog no matter what camera it's used in, as is wi-fi.

I know it is.. that's why I have never used it with the battery having such poor battery-life... that's my problem with this camera.. why would Canon put GPS on a camera if realistically it couldn't be used draining the battery even further..

 

[Stakeouttoo]

The 7d2 battery is very good. Try charging it several times or getting a new one. I use GSP most of the time and I still gets thousands of shots out of one charge.

impossible as that relates to my camera.. as a guess if I used GPS my battery life would then be cut in half-- maybe 200 shots if that

 

[MaxCh]

The 7d2 battery is very good. Try charging it several times or getting a new one. I use GSP most of the time and I still gets thousands of shots out of one charge.

impossible as that relates to my camera.. as a guess if I used GPS my battery life would then be cut in half-- maybe 200 shots if that

--
Ray
my Canon 60d sure beats using that ol' Petri 7s

I think you may have a faulty camera and/or battery. 200 shots with GPS would be completely unacceptable to me. I can easily get several thousands shots with GPS on.

I also don't see GPS as the major drain on the battery. I went to Europe few weeks ago and I had GPS on all the time. I took thousands of pictures each day and I usually went through about 2, sometimes 3 (not fully depleted!) batteries each days.

As I've mentioned in my earlier post, I recently took 11,000 shots in two days with 4 batteries. And they were never completely depleted so I probably could take more shots.

I suggest trying a different battery.

 

[Stakeouttoo]

The 7d2 battery is very good. Try charging it several times or getting a new one. I use GSP most of the time and I still gets thousands of shots out of one charge.

impossible as that relates to my camera.. as a guess if I used GPS my battery life would then be cut in half-- maybe 200 shots if that

 

[Stakeouttoo]

called Canon.. they had no solution.. so I had enuff... returned 7DMkII to Amazon this morning ... I'll wait and see if Canon comes up with a solution to my liking for the battery life with and without using GPS before I get a replacement and will continue to use my old 60d.. after waiting so long for this camera to show its face to do my upgrade.. what a disappointment

I did notice that the Firmware was 1.02 on my camera... so the new 1.04 Firmware needed to be d/l..would this help--doubt it according to the Firmware info... but with the price of this camera I wasn't about to do any type of 'fix-it' when that should have been done originally by Canon

 

[MaxCh]

called Canon.. they had no solution.. so I had enuff... returned 7DMkII to Amazon this morning ... I'll wait and see if Canon comes up with a solution to my liking for the battery life with and without using GPS before I get a replacement and will continue to use my old 60d.. after waiting so long for this camera to show its face to do my upgrade.. what a disappointment

I did notice that the Firmware was 1.02 on my camera... so the new 1.04 Firmware needed to be d/l..would this help--doubt it according to the Firmware info... but with the price of this camera I wasn't about to do any type of 'fix-it' when that should have been done originally by Canon

 

[riknash]

I know there's another long thread below that I didn't want to add to with this...

have the 7DMkII for about 3 weeks now.. seems the battery is what's bugging me about it... all settings are at minimum hopefully using less power like LCD .. GPS disabled..no flash pics.. mainly just single shot pics.. on average seems that the stock battery is getting 400 shots on a charge down to 30%..

not into getting a battery grip .. have my 60d battery as a backup... seems those numbers should be better and to me are more of an annoyance.. bottomline.. might be a bit disappointed with it especially on our longer trips/cruises when we travel

anyone else getting better.. worse or about the same??

will call Canon this week to see what sweet-talk they give me about it..

--
Ray
my Canon 60d sure beats using that ol' Petri 7s

I am getting about the same.

I don't think all copies of the new Canon battery are created equal as some on this forum have experienced dismal performance but somewhat improved with a new battery. Secondly, the camera is a bit of a power hog, depleting the battery far sooner than the old 7D. Now for whatever reason, not every copy of the 7DII are created equal. Some on this forum have far better success than others with battery life. You should buy another battery and see if it helps. At the very least, having a spare full battery is the way-to-go for this camera model. Afterwards, if still unsatisfied, if you care to endure the loss of the camera for a few weeks, send the camera in with battery and see if the repair center can 'fix' it.

Using the GPS doesn't make any significant difference. I leave it on. The top LCD flashes the GPS for days on an unused camera without discharging the battery. The battery drains quickest when taking photos or reviewing them on the LCD.

I am OK with the shorter battery life than the 7D. The much improved performance of taking successful photos over the 7D makes the poor battery life tolerable.

Considering the very poor battery life of the Sony cameras, the Canon 7D Mk II battery life isn't so bad. I keep my Sony Nex-7 battery life longer by switching the camera on just before I want to shoot and then immediately back off after taking the shot. I have the review time set very short. I won't do this for the Canon 7D II as I need the camera ready as fast as possible when shooting action photography.

 

[Stakeouttoo]

I am getting about the same.

I don't think all copies of the new Canon battery are created equal as some on this forum have experienced dismal performance but somewhat improved with a new battery. Secondly, the camera is a bit of a power hog

it sure is a power hog... I just now checked the specs of the 5DMKIII on the Canon site.. shows battery at 970 shots compared to 7DMKII at 670 and my average was about 400.. one should not have to shut everything down--play games with it-- and just be able to use the camera 'as is' the way it was designed..

I'm still researching this on as many sites as I can

 

[steinr98]

I realize U returned your camera "BUT" Using a 3rd party battery, and only 1800 ma, I started a lightning shoot with one bar down on the battery indicator and took 681 shots in succession with the back info screen on using the built in interval timer - shot after shot trying for lightning strikes...and the battery still had one bar when I quit- (GPS was off tho). Each shot was 1/4 of a second as it was twilight so the camera just kept on shooting and saving to the card. I cannot complain!!!

 

[Dale Garman]

Camera choices often appear strange to others I guess. It seems you are saying that one single criteria trumps all others in selecting a camera and that is battery life. With all the other significant differences between your camera and the 7D MKII it just seems a strange overriding criteria.

 

[Greg Dunn]

And it's not clear if he ever tried a different battery. I shot a tournament this summer with mine and an OEM battery grip with STK batteries. The first day I got almost 1600 shots, using an IS lens, LCD running much of the time, and still had about 40% left on the battery menu for each cell. Not as good as my 5D3, perhaps, but I could have probably finished the tournament (another 500 shots) without swapping batteries.

 

[Stakeouttoo]

Camera choices often appear strange to others I guess. It seems you are saying that one single criteria trumps all others in selecting a camera and that is battery life. With all the other significant differences between your camera and the 7D MKII it just seems a strange overriding criteria.