stant52 wrote:
I was reading all the replies to the post "camera on or off " . And it seems everyone carries a spare battery when out shooting . How many pictures do you guys shoot to use up a battery ??
I know every camera is different but on a big day, I've shot close to 500 pics and still had plenty of battery life left with both my Nikon D5100 and my D7200. I've never needed to use a spare battery. Just curious .
I shoot sports events. Some days run 8 or more hours of near non-stop shooting. I think the most I've ever shot in a single day was 9000 images, but I frequently shoot between 1500 and 4500 in a day.
I have battery grips on two Canon 7D Mark II (DSLRs), with each grip holding two LP-E6N batteries each. I regularly get upwards of 2500 or 3000 shots with each, so am confident a single battery in good condition would be able to take at least for 1200 to 1500 images. I bet it's actually more because I usually change batteries when I see them getting under 25%, don't wait until the camera quits. I carry one extra set of batteries for each camera and I have a third camera with me usually (a less frequently used full frame model) so have a total of twelve LP-E6N batteries. Six in the cameras all the time and six as backup. Because some events are multiple days, I also have some extra chargers to be able to fully recharge up 6, 8 or more batteries overnight.
This is better with modern lithium batteries, than it was with Nimh in the past. With those I always carried two sets of spare batteries per camera.
Canon rates the 7D Mark II for just 700 shots per single battery, but I am easily getting double that. The original 7D, which I also used, was rated for more: 800 shots per charge. The current Canon 90D is much more efficient, rated to get 1300 shots per battery charge.
I also use a Canon M5 mirrorless camera.... which uses a smaller battery and gets far fewer shots per charge with it. It's rated to do less than 300. I haven't really tracked it and take far, far fewer shot with it than I do with my DSLRs. I probably beat the rated shots per charge, though not by much and still carry an extra LP-E17 battery for use in it.
There are a number of things that can be done to conserve power in cameras.
1. Don't use built-in flashes!
First of all, the manufacturers' testing is done in a standardized way called "CIPA". When the camera has a built-in flash, that must be used for 50% of the shots to arrive at the CIPA rating. As a result cameras without a built-in flash often can look more power efficient. However, you can significantly increase the shots possible with a camera that has a built-in, simply by not using that flash at all! It's a heavy drain on the battery (plus built-in flashes are crap for other reasons). Use an accessory flash instead. That flash will have it's own power source and saves the camera's battery power.
2. Minimize use of the rear LCD screen.
Many cameras are set by default to automatically replay the last image taken on the large LCD screen. I turn that off to save a lot of power. Instead I occasionally call up a shot myself to check things. Doing this also discourages the distraction of "chimping", i.e. staring sown at the back of your camera instead of concentrating on shooting and keeping your eye to the viewfinder and the camera aimed at your subject(s).
My cameras also have a menu page where I can store links to the things I most frequently access in the menu... which makes access a lot faster than having to navigate through the entire menu. The cameras also have a "quick" screen that can be called up on the LCD with a single button, where a lot of the most basic adjustments can be done. I use that occasionally, but often just use the dials and watch the settings in the viewfinder instead.
3. Set the camera to go into sleep mode in as short a time as possible.
This was a problem with older cameras that were slow to wake up and caused me to miss shots. Today's cameras wake up instantly, so there's no reason not to have them go into sleep mode in a relatively short time, to conserve battery power. I think mine are set to 30 seconds.
4. Turn off unused features such as GPS or WiFi.
I use neither of these on any of my cameras (if they even have them). But I understand that they also draw some power. Sometimes they even stay active and continue drawing power when the camera is in sleep mode. If not really needed, might as well turn them off.
There are other power users you simply can't do anything about. Active AF and image stabilization actually don't appear to use a lot of power, but certainly use some. If shooting active subjects you may use them a lot. I've often shot with an image stabilized lens on one camera alongside another camera with a lens that doesn't have that feature, and see virtually no difference in the number of shots I got before needing to change batteries.
DSLRs with an optical viewfinder tend to be a little to a lot more power efficient than mirrorless cameras with an electronic viewfinder. This because the DSLR's optical viewfinder (OVF) can be used any time and doesn't draw much power (just to display the AF points and some camera settings info). In contrast, the electronic viewfinder (EVF) used in almost all mirrorless cameras is a small screen that has to be powered up all the time while the camera is in use. It's constantly drawing a through-the-lens view from the image sensor and displaying that within the viewfinder. When the camera is turned off or goes into sleep mode, the EVF goes completely dark. The power draw of an active image sensor sending a signal to the display in the EVF, is in addition to all the other power usage that's common to both mirrorless and DSLR cameras. Manufacturers have been aware of the issue with mirrorless and working on it. A few models of mirrorless have even used "hybrid" viewfinders that are partly optical to help them be more efficient. This isn't typical, though.