p.1 #1 · EOS-3 frame adavnce and mirroor balckout with PB-E2
Yesterday shoot a few frames for the first time with my recently acquired PB-E2 attached to my EOS-3. Was immediately amazed by the frame advance speed in single mode and the percieved shortage on mirri blackout time. I was shootign indoors with flash in Manual mode setting 1/125 @ f5.6, I was thinking for a moment I screwed up and set something like over 1/1000 speed by mistake, but checking again it turned to be really 1/125.
The mirror blackout was even hardly nticeable and film advanced to the new frame in a split of the moment - everything noticeably fster then I got used to shooting with EOS-3 without PB-E2. To mention: I use just regular 8xAAs (Energizer) in the grip and according to the spec the performance should be about teh same as with plain EOS-3, but apparently it is still somehow faster....
p.1 #2 · EOS-3 frame adavnce and mirroor balckout with PB-E2
The PB-E2 isn't the extra batterypack but the powerbooster! And with the powerbooster you'll get 7 or 8fps instead of 3.
The proof of this is the amout of batteries you mentioned, the batterypack just takes 4 AA's, the powerbooster takes 8 AA's.
Another option of the powerbooster is the 2nd releasebutton which isn't availlable on the batterypack.
p.1 #3 · EOS-3 frame adavnce and mirroor balckout with PB-E2
Thanks Rob, but this is not 100% correct: PB-E2 indeed combines a vertical grip funcitonality with booster abilities, however, according to its specifications putting inside 8xAAs isn't going to boost up an fps relatively to plain EOS-3 with 2CR5 (both should give about 4.5 fps) even though the total power is 12V instead of 6 out of 2CR5.
Having said that I epxerienced noticeable increase in film advance speed (at least in single mode) and apparently shorter mirror blackout durations.
p.1 #4 · EOS-3 frame adavnce and mirroor balckout with PB-E2
Alexz,
With the the PB-E2 the fps should increase to 7 when loaded with the appropriate batteries or dedicated battery-pack. I use it together with a 1D and frame-rate is almost the same.
p.1 #5 · EOS-3 frame adavnce and mirroor balckout with PB-E2
That is Guido, just as you said "with appropriate batteries or dedicated battery-pack" which is not my case (they referred for lithiums or the pack). As fasr as I remember with regular AAs it should provide roughly similar performance as the camera alone with 2CR5. But somehow even with just plain AAs theer is certain boost in performance...
p.1 #6 · EOS-3 frame adavnce and mirroor balckout with PB-E2
Alexz,
Guido is quite right. Fps with PB-E2 increases from 4.3 to 6 (shooting mode oneshot AF cont.) or from 3.3 to 5 (Ai servo) according to Canon. And i think your camera still works on 6V, the 8 batteries are conected into 2 parallel strings of 4 batteries in series. giving a higher poweroutput at the same voltage.
p.1 #8 · EOS-3 frame adavnce and mirroor balckout with PB-E2
OH guys, my sencere apology...
Just figured teh original manual of the grip (I though I lost it) - you're certainly correct, I'm wrong.
With regular AAs (LR6) on H mode (and I never switched to L) it indeed provides 6 fps in Single and 5 in AI Servo, so this is where my wondering came from... :-)
Anyway, highly appreciate your calrification, Alex
BTW, your comment Rob about actual battery connections certainly makes sense - provides twice as much current output ability to drive the motor at the same voltage to achieve higher performance.
p.1 #10 · EOS-3 frame adavnce and mirroor balckout with PB-E2
the 8 batteries are conected into 2 parallel strings of 4 batteries in series. giving a higher poweroutput at the same voltage
Not sure this is true or not, but I don't think it has anything to do with how the PB-E2 increases the film advance rate.
The PB-E2 incorporates an additional motor and gear train which take over some of the work from the camera's built-in motors, which allows each function (mirror cocking, shutter priming, and film advance) to operate faster.
Without the PB-E2, the camera has one small motor that performs the film rewind, shutter priming, and mirror cocking functions. When the PB-E2 is attached, its motor takes over the shutter and mirror operations, speeding up these operations, while the low-speed planetary gear set in the booster increases the camera's film advance rate from 4.3 FPS to 6 FPS with the 8xAA battery pack.
Installing the NP-E2 battery pack switches the booster from the low-speed gear to the high-speed gear, which boostes film advance to 7 FPS.
It's all explained in the sales brochure for the EOS 3.
p.1 #12 · EOS-3 frame adavnce and mirroor balckout with PB-E2
Guildo is quite right,
The powerbooster incorporates an extra motor, somewhere in the sales brochure there is a view of the internals of the powerbooster. One can clearly see the extra motor.
