p.4 #1 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
ted1000 wrote:
The 45W Anker appears to run the camera when turned on with the only changes in that the camera's battery indicator greys out and the H+ turning from green to white (in mechanical shutter). This is without a grip. I'm hoping to have the time later this week to shoot more to confirm this.
It definitely charges the battery when the camera is off. It took 2 hours to charge a battery that was down to about 20%.
Joe: It sounds like you are using a grip. Have you run the camera by external battery without the grip?
Nope. "Go Grip or Go Home"...
And yes, in case anyone hasn't read my earlier post about this, THE CAMERA RUNS ON 45W PD THROUGH THE USB PORT (saying it louder for the people in the back...)
p.4 #2 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
JoeTomasone wrote:
Nope. "Go Grip or Go Home"...
And yes, in case anyone hasn't read my earlier post about this, THE CAMERA RUNS ON 45W PD THROUGH THE USB PORT (saying it louder for the people in the back...)
UPDATE: Shot all day on the 60W PD RavPower battery via USB C port. It ran the camera all day, and I changed most of the settings to not power off. The in-camera battery was never used.
I got 20 fps in electronic shutter, will run full out in mechanical shutter, and no grip. Just the camera, a USB cable, and the RavPower battery..... I like this. At the end of the day, the battery showed only one light out of four dark.... this thing can shoot forever. If you power off the camera (or let it time out), the camera switches over and charges the in-camera battery if needed. $50 total, less than the price of an additional Canon NH battery. Done!
p.4 #3 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
lighthound wrote:
Interesting! Let us know how they work out Geoff.
Here is an update on the BigMikes (BM) LP-E6NH batteries that I received yesterday. All of this is on R5 FW 1.2
1) put battery in camera right out of the box...68% charge....Solid white H+...not a good start as my Canon one goes to solid white at about 43% charge. Tried the second one and it was 76% and also solid white. Was about to box up and send back.
2) charged one of the batteries to 100%. Now I get a Green H+ icon. That is good but not really if I can only use it to 76% or maybe even less before dropping to White.
3) Tested one fully charged and one 68% charged in the battery grip: Green Icon
4) Ran down the BM to 8%...put that in the grip with a fully charged BM: Green Icon. I had read previously that when using the grip all it requires is one battery to be in "green range" to have green icon. Which is odd because if you have only one battery in the grip (even fully charged Canon) you don't get green, only solid white. This was the first time I could test this out as I have only had a single NH battery up until yesterday
5) BM battery at 8% on its own gives Flashing White icon. Not surprised.
6) Camera reports the battery as an "NH" with full data and can be registered in the battery menu
7) Camera can USB-C charge the BM battery just like the Canon one.
8) In order to speed up testing I ran down the BM from 68% by just letting the camera record 4K/30 HQ video. It drained ridiculously fast but I don't really know how fast a Canon one drains in comparison. I will have to test. I shot two clips for a total of 25 mins of video to drain from 68% to 8%.
So conclusion is that the BM is able to give you Green icon and 12FPS MS. However, it seems it doesn't hold that green icon for very long. My next test will be to see at what % it goes green to white. My previous test on the OEM Canon was exactly at 43%. Previously I'd never quite caught the switch exactly but was always around 36-40% when I noticed the switch. Still better than the official Canon number of 60%. But the BM seems much worse.
However, having these batteries will now allow me to use my battery grip and have 12FPS. Up until now I could only get 12FPS by using the Canon battery in the camera without the grip.
Further testing will also include seeing how the batteries are drained in the grip. I had noticed previously that they drain pretty much in sync. But I also ready others report that they weren't draining in sync. If they do drain at the same rate then I should be able to go at 12FPS for a long while as both will have to drain to about 43% if I use one Canon and one BM before the FPS drops to 9.6 (White icon). That should be sufficient for a full morning outing. However, if I use two BMs in the grip, not sure if it will loose 12FPS at 80% on each or something??
I still have two OEM Canon batteries on order. They have been backordered in Canada (at least at my store) for months now. May drop that order down to just one as I think having two OEMs and these two BMs will be sufficient.
p.4 #4 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
Excellent info and report Geoff. This sounds promising to me if for no other reason than what you pointed out with extending the time with the grip.
I seem to recall someone saying that they were still getting 12fps with a non OEM after the camera was reporting it with a white H+. So even though you are seeing the white H+ @ 68% on the BM, I'm wondering if it's actually only giving you 9fps or is it still able to pump out 12fps but the body is simply reporting it incorrectly.
Might it be worth your time to check this with a stopwatch?
Thanks for the follow-up!
p.4 #5 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
Bruce n Philly wrote:
UPDATE: Shot all day on the 60W PD RavPower battery via USB C port. It ran the camera all day, and I changed most of the settings to not power off. The in-camera battery was never used.
I got 20 fps in electronic shutter, will run full out in mechanical shutter, and no grip. Just the camera, a USB cable, and the RavPower battery..... I like this. At the end of the day, the battery showed only one light out of four dark.... this thing can shoot forever. If you power off the camera (or let it time out), the camera switches over and charges the in-camera battery if needed. $50 total, less than the price of an additional Canon NH battery. Done!
p.4 #7 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
lighthound wrote:
Excellent info and report Geoff. This sounds promising to me if for no other reason than what you pointed out with extending the time with the grip.
I seem to recall someone saying that they were still getting 12fps with a non OEM after the camera was reporting it with a white H+. So even though you are seeing the white H+ @ 68% on the BM, I'm wondering if it's actually only giving you 9fps or is it still able to pump out 12fps but the body is simply reporting it incorrectly.
Might it be worth your time to check this with a stopwatch?
Thanks for the follow-up! ...Show more →
I will check the FPS when I get the chance. I've been doing that a lot lately after watching the T&C video that claimed the ES dropped to 13 FPS from 20FPS at 60%.....not true.
p.4 #9 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
Flowernut wrote:
Has anyone tried the Watson LP-E6NH Lithium-Ion Battery Pack? Rated to have more mAh than original canon e6nh battery.
Haven't tried it, but according to the staff responses at BH Photo/Video, it works like the Canon OEM, including being able to charge in body with a cable and getting 12 fps mechanical. Though cheaper than the Canon OEM, it's still quite expensive at $59.
p.4 #10 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
Thanks for the report, I don't do a lot of high frame rate, however the fact that these report as NH and work without the camera complaining is good news. I'll get a couple of these to complement the one NH that came with the R5 and a few Ns from before.
p.4 #11 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
Andrew J wrote:
They were using a 500 f/4L vI for years. That might be why the reduced framerate at a certain voltage.
That is a good point. They had a 600 f/4 IS III in the video but not sure if that is the lens they tested and got 13FPS or if it was with their old 500.
p.4 #13 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
Arbitrage, thank you for the testing and update. Your conclusion is based on your needs (which is to be expected). I am reading your conclusion and trying to read between the lines for my needs. In particular, I noticed this:
However, it seems it doesn't hold that green icon for very long.
As somebody who will not be using a grip and is a wildlife shooter, I am thinking I should be concerned about using the BM batteries. On the other hand, it drops to 9.2 fps after 12 fps so it is not like a noticeable change for me from 10 fps for the 7D Mark II (that is, it's not like I have to stop shooting and change batteries immediately).
$60CDN for two is pretty sweet vs $240CDN for two but only if they do the job. If you were not using a battery grip, how would you feel about these BM batteries when shooting wildlife? Would you return them or still be content with them?
p.4 #14 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
EverLearning wrote:
Arbitrage, thank you for the testing and update. Your conclusion is based on your needs (which is to be expected). I am reading your conclusion and trying to read between the lines for my needs. In particular, I noticed this:
As somebody who will not be using a grip and is a wildlife shooter, I am thinking I should be concerned about using the BM batteries. On the other hand, it drops to 9.2 fps after 12 fps so it is not like a noticeable change for me from 10 fps for the 7D Mark II (that is, it's not like I have to stop shooting and change batteries immediately).
$60CDN for two is pretty sweet vs $240CDN for two but only if they do the job. If you were not using a battery grip, how would you feel about these BM batteries when shooting wildlife? Would you return them or still be content with them?
I probably would still keep them without the grip because I'm actually shooting in ES most of the time these days and then it doesn't even matter what battery you have in the camera nor how much it is charged.
However, if I was someone who wanted to shoot mostly in MS and maximize the FPS then I wouldn't keep these.
But I do still want to test what Dave mentioned earlier and see if the FPS is really dropping or just the icon is changing prematurely. If the actual rate doesn't drop then that would change things.
Also, the 9.2 FPS is still pretty good for most things. I've shot most of my recent cameras at 9-10FPS and I shoot my A9II at 10FPS the large majority of the time even though I have 20FPS available to me.
p.4 #15 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
Thanks for the additional thoughts arbitrage.
I plan on shooting exclusively or near exclusively in MS. I would prefer to avoid the distortion issue on fast action and, frankly, I am terrible as it is at culling photos. If I use ES' 20 fps I may never get out from behind the computer!
I guess I will bite the bullet and buy one OEM battery and see what you and others conclude about BM and other 3rd party batteries over more time.
p.4 #16 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
I suspect.... just a guess... that mechanical shutter draws the most juice. I know running the mechanical shutter when I did my tests with that lower power Anker battery would shut down the camera... with the higher power unit, it ran fine.
So..... 60%.... non-NH battery.... the camera is simply telling us that we may not be getting optimal hence the white or blinking white H+. I think the camera is guessing. In other words, a green H+ simply means you have a modern battery and the battery's recharge performance is good.... you met the criterion. A non-Canon, non-NH battery? Oops, it will display white.
The proof is when the camera demands (draws) current from the battery. If the battery can deliver the current, you will get maximum performance. I think a white H+ is not a restriction, but a warning.
So.... I think you just need to test it. But... your tests will only show what your configuration delivers... another brand of battery, or an older one, etc... may give worse/better results. I will bet a new NH battery will give max performance down to almost dead but an older, well used one, will crap out way early.. maybe at 60%? I think Canon is giving us conservative rules of thumb.
p.4 #17 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
lighthound wrote:
Excellent info and report Geoff. This sounds promising to me if for no other reason than what you pointed out with extending the time with the grip.
I seem to recall someone saying that they were still getting 12fps with a non OEM after the camera was reporting it with a white H+. So even though you are seeing the white H+ @ 68% on the BM, I'm wondering if it's actually only giving you 9fps or is it still able to pump out 12fps but the body is simply reporting it incorrectly.
Might it be worth your time to check this with a stopwatch?
Thanks for the follow-up! ...Show more →
So I tested the FPS this morning. I had the single battery in the camera, no grip. Charge was 76% and showing White Icon. Shot my phones stopwatch with 100ths of a second. Was getting 9FPS.
Funny as then I was fiddling with the menus for a minute and battery dropped to 73% and then the Green Icon came on...did a quick burst and it did do 12FPS. But then it dropped another % or two and back to white. Once more I turned the camera OFF and ON and went back to Green...started shooting another test burst, did about 6 shots at 12FPS and then I could hear it drop mid-burst to 9FPS (once you listen a few times you can actually tell by ear the FPS difference). Stopped the burst and it was back to White Icon. After that it stayed at White no matter what I did.
So I guess a little glitchy right around the shutoff point. But the Green to White (12 to 9) is around 75% so that is pretty poor compared to Canon's OEM at 43% or so. But with the Battery Grip it changes things a lot and for me it will be a solution for now.
Funny thing is I emailed my dealer and asked to drop my 2 battery order to 1 battery. He did that and told me they had ordered 144 batteries a few months ago and so far have only seen 20 arrive. He wasn't sure when he would have one for me. But then to my surprise, an hour or so later I get a shipping confirmation and my battery is in the mail So don't know what that was about...maybe they had one left and weren't shipping my order because I had two on order...but whatever...now I'm set for batteries and will experiment with how they drain in the grip and how low the main Canon OEM can get in the grip before going White Icon.
I think best grip strategy if you have a mix of Canon and 3rd party is to run one Canon and one 3rd party with a fully charged Canon in your pocket. Once the Canon gets to 43% or so the FPS will likely drop and then you can just swap in the 2nd Canon. That should get most people through an entire day of shooting in my experience but of course every situation is a bit different.
What I don't think you'd want to do is run two 3rd party in the grip...but I will test that to see if the FPS drop happens when both hit 75%. You could run two Canon OEMs as that will get you about 1.2 batteries worth of 12FPS. Then swap in a 3rd party for another 0.25. Probably that way or the mixed way will get you about the same if I'm thinking about it correctly. But it will all depend if the batteries drain in sync or not. When I used Pius' R5 way back it was draining two in sync...they always stayed just a few % points apart so I guess it just alternates between them.
p.4 #18 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
Damn. That's not what I was hoping to hear and dropping @ 75% makes it even worse.
If this fps drop happened in ES, I'd be all over a set of these BM's and would be tickled pink to be able to shoot ES @ 9fps.
But I shoot almost entirely in MS and love 12fps which seems like a perfect speed for my use. I can't stand the culling process shooting at 20fps. I'm just too slow at it.
Perhaps you could put together a nice video tutorial that shows people how you tackle and handle your culling process when shooting ES?
I'm in the process of building a new system right now to handle these larger files so hopefully that will change my mind on using ES in the future.
Thanks for spending the time on this and sharing your findings Geoff. We all appreciate it.
p.4 #19 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
I echo lighthound's comment. 'Damn' and 'thank you'. I was hoping the BM batteries would be a suitable alternative to the insanely priced Canon batteries, but as somebody who photographs wildlife and will do so with MS and no grip, these batteries just won't cut it.
It will be interesting to see what other folks find with other third party batteries going forward.
p.4 #20 · R5/R6 - Battery / Coupler / Charging in the field - lessons & questions
lighthound wrote:
Damn. That's not what I was hoping to hear and dropping @ 75% makes it even worse.
If this fps drop happened in ES, I'd be all over a set of these BM's and would be tickled pink to be able to shoot ES @ 9fps.
But I shoot almost entirely in MS and love 12fps which seems like a perfect speed for my use. I can't stand the culling process shooting at 20fps. I'm just too slow at it.
Perhaps you could put together a nice video tutorial that shows people how you tackle and handle your culling process when shooting ES?
I'm in the process of building a new system right now to handle these larger files so hopefully that will change my mind on using ES in the future.
Thanks for spending the time on this and sharing your findings Geoff. We all appreciate it. ...Show more →
Culling process.... yes a real issue at 20/fps. My process:
1 - Attitude. Delete is your friend. Be strong.
2 - Copy all files from card to a temp disk drive (I have an extra one and it allows for staging/management)
3 - FastStone Image Viewer (free) - delete with abandon! It can edit and such but I just use it to view and delete at a fast clip. A real fast clip. If you can't make up your mind, delete every-other one, then re-review.
4 - Copy files that are remaining to LR folders and then import.
5 - Run system backups that evening
6 - Format card only just before next use
Peace
Bruce in Philly
Without 20/fps, I would have missed this... no one in the group of photographers around me caught this, and none of us realized this happened. Highly cropped... and slightly out of focus at 1/3200 shutter... my R5 just woke up and focusing is stupid for a few moments... focus points were spot on...hence me wanting full power and no power saving... having an always on camera has real advantages over just battery life and convenience.
(BTW, I found out later the eagles are named Hillary and Bernie... not sure which is which...hmm.)
So don't know what that was about...maybe they had one left and weren't shipping my order because I had two on order...but whatever...now I'm set for batteries and will experiment with how they drain in the grip and how low the main Canon OEM can get in the grip before going White Icon.
That's not what I was hoping to hear and dropping @ 75% makes it even worse.