Normal overnight (Canon LP-E12) battery drain?

Advi wrote:

Hi.

I have a M50 (that uses the same LP-E12) and keep the battery inside the camera. Always. There is no battery drain if you do it.

Is your battery working ok?

Well, taking pictures does not drains a lot of battery. Using the LCD does.

If you played for 1 hour, I guess it is ok to be 50%.

Usually, a full charged LP-E12 battery allows you to film (full HD, 24 fps) for 2 hours. So, your battery seems reasonable.

I spent whole days at Walt Disney World taking pictures and making little videos. Usually, I used a full battery and returned to the hotel with 50% of the 2nd battery. And I had a 3rd one in my pocket just to be sure my batteries would not go out of juice.

After using more your camera, if you want more juice, just buy 2 more batteries for under US$ 20.

2 Wasabi batteries yesterday were $17 and 2 BM Premium LP-E12 were $18 at Amazon). $23 if you buy them with a double charger (charges 2 batteries at once). So, pretty cheap.

Happy shotting.

Thanks for responding. Elsewhere others are saying the drain is excessive. Based on the overnight drain outside of the camera.

StrugglingforLight wrote:

Bought a refurb M200 from Canon. Unlike the camera and lens, the battery looks refurb (more likely used). Marks on the glossy black portions and no protective cover on the battery terminal.

Did you happen to notice if there were any marks on the battery terminals before you put it into your camera or charger?  The lack of a plastic battery cover in the package does not really mean anything.

I charged the battery fully at 7PM last night and stored it outside of the camera. This morning at 8am it required an additional 8-10mins to fully charge.

That is not necessarily unusual.  Lithium batteries don't really like sitting at 100% and will drop a little.  Also, going from 95% to 100% is harder than going from 80% to 95%.  Taking an additional 8-10 minutes to fully charge again is hard to quantify.  In that time did the battery charge from 97% to 100% or was it 75% to 100%?

Battery was stored outside of the camera in the camera bag. Ambient room temp around 63-65 degrees Fahrenheit.

In usage terms: I got the camera last Tuesday. So a week since last fully charged. I took 20 pics (1 with flash on to test) and about 1hr setting up (screen on) in that span. Battery yesterday was around 50% based on the camera battery bar.

Dropping to 50% after an hour of screen use sounds completely normal.  Pretty much everyone with a new camera sees something similar for the same reasons.  Spending hours scrolling menus and playing with settings sucks up a lot of power.

is all this normal? Thank you.

Everything sounds relatively normal.  If by chance the battery is degraded, it is not dramatically so.  Try to run the battery down to 50% a few times and get some more charge cycles on the battery.  After that, put a charged battery in the camera and leave it for a few days to a week.  Dropping one bar after sitting for a while is normal.  Dropping to 50% in a week would be cause for concern.

nnowak wrote:

StrugglingforLight wrote:

Bought a refurb M200 from Canon. Unlike the camera and lens, the battery looks refurb (more likely used). Marks on the glossy black portions and no protective cover on the battery terminal.

Did you happen to notice if there were any marks on the battery terminals before you put it into your camera or charger? The lack of a plastic battery cover in the package does not really mean anything.

I charged the battery fully at 7PM last night and stored it outside of the camera. This morning at 8am it required an additional 8-10mins to fully charge.

That is not necessarily unusual. Lithium batteries don't really like sitting at 100% and will drop a little. Also, going from 95% to 100% is harder than going from 80% to 95%. Taking an additional 8-10 minutes to fully charge again is hard to quantify. In that time did the battery charge from 97% to 100% or was it 75% to 100%?

Battery was stored outside of the camera in the camera bag. Ambient room temp around 63-65 degrees Fahrenheit.

In usage terms: I got the camera last Tuesday. So a week since last fully charged. I took 20 pics (1 with flash on to test) and about 1hr setting up (screen on) in that span. Battery yesterday was around 50% based on the camera battery bar.

Dropping to 50% after an hour of screen use sounds completely normal. Pretty much everyone with a new camera sees something similar for the same reasons. Spending hours scrolling menus and playing with settings sucks up a lot of power.

is all this normal? Thank you.

Everything sounds relatively normal. If by chance the battery is degraded, it is not dramatically so. Try to run the battery down to 50% a few times and get some more charge cycles on the battery. After that, put a charged battery in the camera and leave it for a few days to a week. Dropping one bar after sitting for a while is normal. Dropping to 50% in a week would be cause for concern.

Unfortunately I didn't check for marks on the battery terminals. I saw marks on the glossy black parts of the battery and immediately assumed it was used.

I can't answer whether it was charging from 97% to 100% or 75% to 100%. I don't think there is a way to display an accurate battery percentage? Camera doesn't show percentage unless I missed it.

Today I took 215 shots over a 4hr period and that dropped it down to 2 bars. WiF and bluetooth off. Single shot, no servo.

I guess it's not safe to say 2 bars is 50% because the manual doesn't go by percentage instead saying:

Full bars: Battery level is sufficient.
2 bars: Battery level is low, but the camera
can still be used.
1 bar: Battery will be exhausted soon.
(Blinks)
No bars: Charge the battery.

StrugglingforLight wrote:

nnowak wrote:

StrugglingforLight wrote:

Bought a refurb M200 from Canon. Unlike the camera and lens, the battery looks refurb (more likely used). Marks on the glossy black portions and no protective cover on the battery terminal.

Did you happen to notice if there were any marks on the battery terminals before you put it into your camera or charger? The lack of a plastic battery cover in the package does not really mean anything.

I charged the battery fully at 7PM last night and stored it outside of the camera. This morning at 8am it required an additional 8-10mins to fully charge.

That is not necessarily unusual. Lithium batteries don't really like sitting at 100% and will drop a little. Also, going from 95% to 100% is harder than going from 80% to 95%. Taking an additional 8-10 minutes to fully charge again is hard to quantify. In that time did the battery charge from 97% to 100% or was it 75% to 100%?

Battery was stored outside of the camera in the camera bag. Ambient room temp around 63-65 degrees Fahrenheit.

In usage terms: I got the camera last Tuesday. So a week since last fully charged. I took 20 pics (1 with flash on to test) and about 1hr setting up (screen on) in that span. Battery yesterday was around 50% based on the camera battery bar.

Dropping to 50% after an hour of screen use sounds completely normal. Pretty much everyone with a new camera sees something similar for the same reasons. Spending hours scrolling menus and playing with settings sucks up a lot of power.

is all this normal? Thank you.

Everything sounds relatively normal. If by chance the battery is degraded, it is not dramatically so. Try to run the battery down to 50% a few times and get some more charge cycles on the battery. After that, put a charged battery in the camera and leave it for a few days to a week. Dropping one bar after sitting for a while is normal. Dropping to 50% in a week would be cause for concern.

Unfortunately I didn't check for marks on the battery terminals. I saw marks on the glossy black parts of the battery and immediately assumed it was used.

I can't answer whether it was charging from 97% to 100% or 75% to 100%. I don't think there is a way to display an accurate battery percentage? Camera doesn't show percentage unless I missed it.

Nope, no way to get an exact percentage report from the camera. That is the problem with just trying to guess based on needing a few minutes to top up again. There are specialized battery testers that can load test a battery, but that route is probably not worth pursuing unless you know of a friend that owns one already.

Today I took 215 shots over a 4hr period and that dropped it down to 2 bars. WiF and bluetooth off. Single shot, no servo.

How much image review and how much time spent composing each shot? Running the LCD consumes more power than any other part of the camera.

I guess it's not safe to say 2 bars is 50% because the manual doesn't go by percentage instead saying:

Full bars: Battery level is sufficient.
2 bars: Battery level is low, but the camera
can still be used.
1 bar: Battery will be exhausted soon.
(Blinks)
No bars: Charge the battery.

Realistically, the LP-E12 is an older battery design and has a relatively low capacity compared to what Canon is using in many other mirrorless cameras.  Even a  perfectly new LP-E12 is not going to give phenomenal performance.  If you find your batterie's capacity lacking, I would suggest picking up some additional third party parties.  They are readily available and really cheap.  Just search Amazon, eBay, etc. for LP-E12 and you will find plenty of options for less than $10 per battery, or about $20 in a dual battery kit with a charger.  LP-E12 batteries are not "chipped", so virtually any third party battery will work fine in your camera.

Alrighty, thank you guys. I'll run it through it's paces for a few weeks and see where it stands. Worse case, I buy an aftermarket battery or two like recommended.

Andy01 wrote:

StrugglingforLight wrote:

Bought a refurb M200 from Canon. Unlike the camera and lens, the battery looks refurb (more likely used). Marks on the glossy black portions and no protective cover on the battery terminal.

I charged the battery fully at 7PM last night and stored it outside of the camera. This morning at 8am it required an additional 8-10mins to fully charge.

This "test" is meaningless. This battery is a 2 cell (2x 3.6V cells), so the last part of any charge is a very slow balancing to get both cells equally fully charged. So when you charge a depleted battery the charging rate (as in amps or milliamps of current flow) is relatively high, and the closer the cells get to fully charged the charger will drop the charging rate down to almost nothing to do the final balancing.

Next time put in in the camera and see what the remaining battery capacity is.

Maybe this is the "issue." Yesterday I fully charged and took it off the charger. I put it back on the charger immediately and it started charging again for a few mins. I didn't repeat again after the green light came on again though.