I was shooting birds in Flight last weekend and had IS on and off, but mostly on, and also in AI servo mode. With a fully charged battery(charged the night before), I only got matybe a few hundred shots, before it basically went dead in my hands.
I also charged a second battery, but didn't bring it, because usually I get many more shots.
Any reasons why this might happen?
It has been a number of years since I had a 1D Mark II and 100-400 at the same time, but, about 7 or 8 years ago, I used that combination regularly. While I can't recall an exact number of shots that I got with combination out of a battery charge, I'm sure it was more than a few hundred, and I kept the IS on at all times.
How old is the battery? If it is one that is of a vintage from around the time the 1D Mark II was a current model, it would be pretty old by now, and it could well be the case that its performance has degraded significantly with age. If you haven't tried reconditioning (or whatever that process for the 1D Mark II was called) the battery, you might try doing that. The process, I believe, drains the battery completely and then charges it. While it might take some time on the charger to do so, it should give the battery the best charge that it is capable of having at its age.
My experience with all batteries on all bodies and with several different IS lenses is that, while I'm sure IS decreases the number of shots I can get per charge, that decrease isn't dramatic. One of the major factors that I've seen that reduces the number of shots per charge is use of the LCD. On my cameras, I have auto review turned off completely, and I usually don't do a lot of chimping. Also, if I'm shooting something that requires me to wait patiently for long periods of time before shooting and if, while waiting, I'm intermittently focusing on the subject for a few seconds at a time and not actually shooting when I'm anticipating possibly getting a chance to shoot the action I was looking for, I'll see the battery drain faster because it is using power to focus (and spin up the IS) without any shots actually being taken.
A lens with IS does not have it permanently engaged, and it can be turned on and off as needed. This is because as it works continuously when in use it consumes a considerable amount of power, and can have a significant impact on camera battery life, these being drained quite quickly. It can double camera power consumption, and generally halves the number of shots it is possible to take on a single battery charge compared to that normally obtained.
Maybe what I'll try next time is not using IS at all. I was shooting Swallows, and had to keep IS on as it was anytime one might zoom by.
But If I up the shutter speed to over 1/1000 at east and not use IS, Maybe that will help as well.
1D II was poor on battery. I rarely got more than 600 RAW. Also as Les said, those batteries don't last a long time and being NiMh have memory issues if you don't do a deep discharge now and then.
I don't recall my 100-400L causing number of shots to drop too much, maybe I'd get 500 but I'd also be chimping a lot as well as having IS on.
Bsmooth wrote:
I was shooting birds in Flight last weekend and had IS on and off, but mostly on, and also in AI servo mode. With a fully charged battery(charged the night before), I only got matybe a few hundred shots, before it basically went dead in my hands.
I also charged a second battery, but didn't bring it, because usually I get many more shots.
Any reasons why this might happen?
A brand new Canon battery in 1DMkII will last up to 1000 frames, if memory serves me right.
If most of your shots are done with IS on, that number will go down by about 15%.
Incidentally, when shooting airborne swallows, might as well turn IS off....it probably does more harm than good because of rapid lens swings which their flight neccessitates.
Conversely, if photographing BIF which fly in a more "civilized", linear and smooth manner, you should have IS on regardless of the shutter speed. In such case the reason for IS is NOT to combat the camera/lens tremour caused blur. The reason is in IS helping with steady AF maintenance on the bird.
Pixel Perfect wrote:
1D II was poor on battery. I rarely got more than 600 RAW. Also as Les said, those batteries don't last a long time and being NiMh have memory issues if you don't do a deep discharge now and then.
I don't recall my 100-400L causing number of shots to drop too much, maybe I'd get 500 but I'd also be chimping a lot as well as having IS on.
I too have not noticed any excessive battery usage with the 100-400
Thanks guys ,Didn't know that about the IS on swallows, plus it'll save on batteries.The battery in question was used, as well as the camera. I did the recycle on all the batteries when I got them. One battery wouldn't even do more than 40 shots, and was cracked anyways, One holds about a charge for about 100 shots, and the Canon one varies a lot, sometime over 500 shots, other times 100-200, eve after the recycling.
I also picked up an aftermarket battery that seems to work for almost a weeks worth of shooting.
A 28-300mm sucks battery life like crazy too. It would be interesting if someone would do a test on battery performance based on lens. I wonder if the IS battery usage is better on the new lenses.
I do not own the 100-400, but i am used to get 800 - 1200 frames (JPG) on my 1D2N using the 70-300L with IS on.
I do agree with Petkal that a moving target demands more on the AF motor, plus it will make you use the camera more than a single shot (more time on the trigger with AF and IS engaged). This will cause degradation on battery.
Recharge your batteries with "refresh". I do it all the time, makes a difference.
Correction : I just shot 3780 JPG with 2 batteries, for a period of 5 days. These were a mix of BIF, casual snaps and sports action. All done with 70-300L with IS and original canon batteries.
Slightly off issue,I also use a 20D and the BP-511(think thats right) and believe it or not I'm still using the original batteries I got with the camera, which I got in 2004 I think. These still shoot about 200-300 shots per, maybe more. I've been amazed they still work so well.
