hogesinwa Loc: Dalyellup Western Australia

I have a Canon 7D MkII. I have 4 batteries, all after market. For the life of me, I cannot find the original Canon battery that came with it. I've obviously put it somewhere safe, to be found one day after my two new Canon genuines arrive.

I took two of the no-names with me to Portugal recently and encountered big problem/s. I took with me also a Universal charger, so that I could charge my GPS battery etc. Well, that was a failure. I don't think the Universal puts out enough to charge the camera battery because it failed to charge either of the two. I took them to a photographer in Peso da Regua and he put them on his Canon charger (wedding photographer) and both charged up just fine.

HOWEVER!! and here's the irritating bit.

I have read through the Li-Ion posts on here and learnt a lot, particularly from the link to the article detailing Capacity Loss. I am sure that these 4 bricks are suffering from that because a fully-charged-night-before battery showing 4 bars on my camera shut down at "about" 2 bars. OK, so it's obviously not up to par.

My question is - is there any way I can tell at what stage of capacity loss these things are at? As in, a battery shows fully charged, I use a portion of it and it shuts, even though it showed full. Can I determine what the capacity is? How much of the 4 bars is fakery?

I have two new genuine Canon batteries on the way from HK and I WILL recycle these if I can't find out what I want to know but I'd like to try to determine the answer first.
Hope this makes sense to someone.
Hoges

BebuLamar

The best gauge for Li-Ion batteries are those that are built in to the battery pack, the camera (or the device that uses the battery pack) simply reads read this value. I am not sure if our digital cameras use these technique or not. If not measuring the output of the battery isn't a reliable way to determine how much charge is left.

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Hoges, The important thing is to rotate and charge batteries with a genuine Canon Battery charger even when you are not shooting images.

Ched49 Loc: Pittsburgh, Pa.

That's the mystery of camera batteries, especially aftermarket. Some cameras are more detailed about lost charge from the battery, that's the main reason I only use recommended batteries from the manufacturer.

hogesinwa Loc: Dalyellup Western Australia

My Canon charger sits on my desk - always ready. This trip was the first time I've tried to use this Universal thing, which is obviously not up to it. I have a battery "reader" that I used on my boat to see what was discharged and what wasn't but it sure don't fit any Li-Ion Canon batteries in it!! Maybe I'll just use suck-it-and-see and recycle them as I discover what, in descending order, are the weakest.
Thanks for the tips.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Re: My question is - is there any way I can tell at what stage of capacity loss these things are....

I think the only gauge in the state of reduced (degraded) capability is the <increased> quickness that the battery drains when in normal use.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Aftermarket batteries will usually not register with the camera to show important information about the battery. OEM or real Canon batteries can report to the camera how well they are. In your 7D mark II menus look for "Battery". I check mine regularly before I go on a shoot. After you go to "Battery", you can press the Info button and it will tell you more about the life of the battery, etc. I have one aftermarket battery that B&H sent me with the purchase of something I can't remember, and it doesn't work because it doesn't have the OEM chip that can communicate with the camera.

arnie77

If you go to menu/settings/battery info
On your camera it will tell you the recharge performance of your battery.
I have found that my third party batteries actually hold up better than the canon factory one that came with the camera.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Battery technology, nowadays they call in energy storage technology, has become more complex. There are so many new battery types and inovations and perhas my knowledge in this field is too old school to be of any assistance. I ran an electronic flash repair, custom builds and modification business for years and still receive newsletters from many of the energy storage companies- it's wild- they have workshops and conventions all over the world! There are ongoing innovations and great engineering.

Unless the batteries in question differ in charisterics and performance from their rechargeable "ancestors" as to charging rates, discharge traits, ampere/hour ratings, expected maximum charge/discharge cycles, capacity and memory issues, my advice would be not to completely trust any battery or camera monitoring system and simply carry enough spare batteries to accommodate each shooting schedule-JUST IN CASE!.

Technically speaking, you can monitor charging rates by placing a milliampere meter in series with the charger and the battery. You can detect voltage drops in a battery as it discharges with a voltmeter when the battery is under load. There are instruments that read capacitance. If that chip in the original brand battery does all of that- very cool! Here's my opinion,however, and the reasons behind it. I use all kinds of batteries in my work- TOO MANY- all the cameras, meters, and 10 portable flash systems. Even when the batteries check out perfectly, they can unceremoniously fail- begin to malfunction or just drop dead and usually at the most inopportune times- like right in the midst of an important shoot. I have had this occur with brand new batteries, ordenerally reliable older ones, original brands and aftermarket types. Many of my former repair clients rushed in convinced that their flash units circuitry had somehow failed, after all, they just put in a brand new battery pack- $200. worth of Ni-Cads! Guess what?- a defective battery!

My theory is that just about everything in you camera requires energy from the battery- the shutter, the automatic exposure systems, the autofocus mechanism and any servo controlled system, all the LEDs, bells and whistles, the electronic viewing screen and Lord knows what else. Every time you accutat any of theses controls you are draining the battery and of course the more you use these features, the more drain. If you camera has a built in electronic flash on thyristor control- the more light output, the more drain. Variations in ambient temperature can also affect battery performance. The age and cumulative of the battery factors in as well.

I can't see doing capacitance tests while shooting. Some say the originals brands work best, others profess that the aftermarket brands are better. Who knows? There are many quality control variations in the manufacturing process- sometimes it's just a matter of luck. Frequency of use is yet another factor.

They ain't that heavy or space consuming- CARRY SPARES!

I'm old- I remember the day when even electronically controlled cameras had, at least, one mechanical shutter speed or manual mode that would work if the battery failed. Nowadays, if the battery dies, you have a high-tech and very expensive doorstop on your hands. Be safe, not sorry!

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

I've have had a Canon 7D Mark II for over 3 years. Some third party batteries are better than others. What particular brands do you have? How have they worked for you in the past? Were you able to get at least six or seven hundred shots from a charge when they were new? Are you sure you don't have GPS turned on? When it is turned on it will seriously drain your batteries even when the camera is turned off. Also understand that there is always a constant power drain as a result of the intelligent viewfinder. Look through the viewfinder when the camera is turned off, then take the battery out and look again and you'll see what I mean. My personal experiences with third-party Watson batteries is that the ones I've tried confused the camera' and did not give me accurate readings of the remaining power. As a result I only use genuine Canon LP-E6N batteries. I have 5 of them.

With regard to the charger, were you not able to test the universal charger before you left? Was there a specific reason that you decided not to take the Canon charger, which is small and Light?

runnyblood

Flashlight etc. Li-ion batteries available from online advertisers are generally grossly over-rated for capacity (not capacitance; that's microfarads for condensers). Capacity is ampere-hours (plot current vs time into a fixed load; the area under the curve is capacity). I suspect after-market photo batteries suffer from the same ailment. The worst example I have is an 18650 cell advertised at "9800 mAh" but testing at .48 Ah from 4.2 to 3.0 volts into a fairly constant load, a home version of my power-system testing for in-flight satellites. Ni-Cds were mentioned; they seem to last forever, but only if they're frequently (semiannually) and carefully reconditioned down to empty before recharging. Incidentally, they in my experience are the most efficient (5% more back in than out) of all the secondaries I've worked with. I'll have a percentage for Li-ions soon. Bob Youngblood

hogesinwa Loc: Dalyellup Western Australia

Done, thank you. Something else I've learned today.

hogesinwa Loc: Dalyellup Western Australia

Yes - the Canon chargers I have (2) have US plug and AUS plug. I do not have one with an EU plug. I have found over the years, from 6 years living on my boat in the Med, that piggy-backing plugs into a EU converter is not a very good solution, as they are not stable. The pins are circular and fall out simply under gravity, unlike the US or AUS which have much more stable pins. I have already used the universal charging my wife's Sony DSC camera battery, which is why we bought it when we lost her charger in Dublin (left behind). I assumed it would charge mine but not the case. I tried to buy a Canon charger in Portugal, with a EU plug but the cheapest I could find at FNAC was 55 Euros!!! I am not kidding - 55 Euros.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

That price seems very steep.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

One way to impair battery performance or actually do in a perfectly good battery and/or charger is using the wrong charger with the existing line voltage or using the right charger with the wrong input voltage. Make certain that the charger is compatible with the voltage, type and A.C. cycle requirements as marked on the charger. Simply adapting the plug may still not remedy an incompatible combination of line voltage and charger. Again, look at the specifications- usually engraved on the charger, and make sure it is for the electrical supply in your location and it is of the correct D.C. output voltage to adequate charge the battery. A charger designed for one camera, flash or battery type is not necessarily compatible with othere equipment. Oftentimes the voltage output of the charger is slight high that that of the battery. The specification on the charger will indicate the input voltage, the output voltage and the charging rate in milliamperes. Some chargers will automatically reduce the charging rate as the battery charges up and then reduce the rate to a trickle charge- just to maintain the battery. Others may not have this feature and it is important to charge the battery for the specified length of time and the make sure to disconnect the charger at the end of the cycle. On some of my older chargers, I use a timer just in case I forget- overheating can kill any battery.