DJ Mills Loc: Idaho

I have the new SX 40 and am looking for a good way to have an extra battery with me. Is my only option to buy a rechargeable from Canon and keep them both charged? It makes more sense to have a traditional battery as a spare, swap it in or out as needed, and recharge the Canon when it is down. Does that make any sense?

BuckeyeBilly Loc: St. Petersburg, FL

djmills,
Just do an internet search for "NB-10L" battery and you'll see a whole host of places to get this. I saw a price of anywhere from $13.00 up to $60.00, depending on who the company is. You might even want to take the battery charger with you to an electronics store or battery store and see if there is a car charger that will work. The Canon website lists a car charger for the SX40 but it doesn't have a price beside it, which means they are probably out of stock. I also have this camera and am thrilled with it!

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

The Canon battery probably has an unusual voltage that would not be available in a traditional battery, such as 7.2V or 8.4V or something like that. Traditional batteries probably also wouldn't fit in the camera correctly. The advice of getting a car charger for your spare is good.

My advice: Don't buy a rechargeable battery that isn't made by Canon. Take the plunge and ONLY buy the real thing from a Canon dealer or Canon direct - not one that says "for Canon" because that's a fake. Clones typically are made of inferior material (so they can be cheap) and will begin not holding a charge properly after a while (which is a symptom of Ni-Cad so I doubt the clones are even made of lithium-ion or it's really pitiful quality if they are). I've got a 5-year old Panasonic FZ-30 with it's own stock battery and I bought two clone batteries for it at the same time. The clones are now to the point of taking a long charge as though they are working correctly but giving me about 12 pictures before they die when it should be over 300 pictures.

SnapHappy Loc: SW Florida

How long have you had the camera and how have you used it? I've had my SX30 for over a year and when I go out on a shoot I leave it on constantly for at least half an hour at one location. I only turn it off when I'm en route from place to place. I typically take ~500 shots during a casual shoot and the battery's down only about half.
And yes, I got a car charger for it at Target, just in case. This is my experience anyway. Hope it helps.

DJ Mills Loc: Idaho

The SX40 is only a week old, but it replaced an SX10. With the SX10 I could keep charged batteries in the camera and some AA Duracells in my camera bag. They would always get me back home to a charger. That kind of arrangement does not sound practical here. Don't I need to let the Canon battery completely discharge from time to time? How do I do that?

DJ Mills Loc: Idaho

Thanks. I appreciate your experience and suggestions.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

The common knowledge is that Lithium Ion batteries don't need to be discharged all the way because they don't build a "memory" like Ni-Cad batteries did. But... my cell phones of the last few years, a battery powered drill I bought 4 batteries for, and the two Panasonic camera batteries I talked about earlier prove that the common knowledge is false.

It probably would be a good idea to let the camera discharge the battery completely from time to time. When it's discharged enough the camera will shut itself off after several warnings. But... don't try to somehow short the battery manually to kill it dead like people did with Ni-Cad because I've heard Lithium Ion will never come back from 0 if you take it that low.

Have you tried AA batteries in the SX40 yet? Do they fit? Is the voltage right?

skrtchazer

I just purchased 2 extra batteries & keep them with me charged.

Greg-Colo Loc: Fort Collins,Co

I ordered one from amazon $15 + $2 for shipping ,they hold their charge well. (if it is the same battery that came with my SX30IS )

WxGuesser Loc: Portland OR

On the other hand, the one sold by Canon is made in China (King of the rip offs and king of poor quality control) while the replacement, which has identical characteristics is made in Japan-at least the ones I bought (which has a much better reputation for quality)

WxGuesser Loc: Portland OR

Unfortunately, AA batteries won't fit-besides it has a 7.5 volt output equivalent to 5 alkaline AA's, or 6 ni-cad or li-ion AA's.

Carioca

I routinely got four to five hours of use with my SX30, before the battery ran all the way down. Using the LCD almost the entire time, too.

I plan to get a second battery, Canon brand only. I'd rather pay extra for the peace of mind.

I'll run one battery until the camera shuts off, then swap and recharge the dead one.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

Excellent logic.

skrtchazer

The IS30 has a different battery than the IS40, I owned them both for a little while until I sold the IS30

gizzy.whicker Loc: Cumberland Co., Illinois

Reading this thread, the slight differences between the SX30 & 40 reminded me of a couple of photos I took the other day with the SX40, and yet another slight difference between these two excellent cameras (we have both). First may I mention that both the SX30 as well as the SX40 take better photos at lower than max mp settings. With the SX30, use the 7mp instead of the 14.1 setting, and with the SX40 use the 6mp instead of the 12.1 setting. Your photos will be much sharper and clearer and still print at 13"x19" Getting back to my point, the SX40 does a better job than the SX30 when taking hand-held shots up into the digital zoom range. The IS works faster and better with the SX40. Below are two hand-held shots while sitting in a chair on DixieLee's back deck. In the first photo (fully retracted lens) notice right in the center of the frame an old outhouse garden tool shed, and barely visible on its door is a copper sun-face. The second photo is zoomed out to full maximum digital (3,360mm equiv), hand held on the face of that copper sun. Is that amazing, or what? I think Canon hit a grand-slam home run with the SX30 & 40 cameras.

24mm equiv, fully retracted lens, hand held


3,360mm equiv, full digital zoom, hand held