Mjump54

I’m about to replace my 1DX Mark II with an R5. I am concerned about the “specs” on the number of images per battery charge as I primarily photograph Equestrian events and may take as many as 2,000 images a day.

My research show about 320 raw images per charge is projected. Is this accurate for those with this camera?

Am considering battery grip to double image count.

Just looking for real world experience.

Nalu Loc: Southern Arizona

I will be curious what the responses are. In my mind, 320 raw images per charge is ridiculously low for a 20 fps, $3,000+ full frame mirrorless camera. If that were the case, no one IMO would ever buy the camera. I am sure that is an error.

BobPeterson Loc: Massachusetts

This thread says what I was thinking based on my experience with the Nikon mirrorless Z6 and Z72.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4558344

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

What is the source of your calculation? Rockwell indicates he gets 10,000 shots per charge. I expect other EOS R5 owners in this community will say similar. Mirrorless battery life in 2023 is not what it was back in the late 2010s.

There are things you can do with a mirrorless camera to extend the battery life. I can get 1000+ shots (all RAW) with the miserable batteries of a Sony a7II by only using the camera viewfinder and not doing image review on the camera LCD.

The link above from DPREVIEW includes similar comments. Configure the camera to limit the display onto the rear LCD, and don't use that display for review in the field. These tips make the batteries last comparably long with a mirrorless.

Mjump54

I see several sites quoting this for battery life
“ Battery Life. The Canon EOS R5 uses an LP-E6NH Rechargeable Battery. And it can only Shoot about 490 Shots without EVF and 320 Shots with EVF.”

MountainDave

I have shot 2000 and still had some life left. High speed shooting does slow down when the battery is run down maybe 2/3. I use the viewfinder and keep the screen closed most of the time but keep the camera turned on between shots when shooting wildlife. 320 is absurdly low.

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

Personally, I think it “depends.” If you keep the LCD and EVF both available, don’t set a power saving timer, use all the bells and whistles, etc, your battery life might not be great. Simply, have an extra battery with you, go out and do what’s normal for you and see how you do. I have an R5 and rarely use the rear LCD except for landscape shots. Most of the time it’s closed completely. My camera goes into standby after 1 minute of non-use. I shoot regular raw and a small jpeg. A typical 6 hour day of casual shooting (250 clicks) won’t dent the battery indicator from the fat segment. If I do that the next day, I’ll see about a 1/3 of life expended, but will charge that night. Because the R5 can charge its battery in-camera, when participating in a workshop, I plug in every night and don’t think about. Bottom line, results very from user to user.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Your 1DXII is rated to get about 1200 shots per charge with its large LP-E19 battery. You probably get a lot more shots than that. The standard CIPA tests the manufacturers use to test their cameras' efficiency are pretty conservative. Generally speaking, with some modest power saving efforts most of us get more shots than our cameras are rated to do... but how much.

This question has come up often, ever since the R5 came out. A user on the Canon Rumors website noted...

Ken Rockwell reported excellent battery life at 10,000 shots with a 3rd party LP-E6N Watson battery (seems unbelievable).
TechRadar reported excellent battery life at 2300+ shots with a LP-E6NH and EVF (unclear if 60 hz or 120 hz).
Random B&H review reported excellent battery life at 1800 shots with a LP-E6NH.
Random B&H review reported average battery life at 800 shots with a LP-E6NH.
Random Amazon review reported average battery life at 650 shots with a LP-E6NH, 120hz enabled, moderate chimping/menu usage.
PetaPixel reported poor battery life at 400 shots with a LP-E6NH and with GPS, WiFi, Dual Pixel, and AF Tracking turned off.

A response to that observation...

Number of shots is not a great indicator of performance for these cameras. They are super fast and the main source of power drain is maintaining the EVF and / or LiveView. If you take a lot of bursts at 20 electronic, you'll get many more shots compared to somebody who spends a lot of time composing and only takes a picture occasionally. In both cases, I think the actual number of minutes spent using the camera would vary far less.

I would also suspect that IBIS has a pretty big impact, though I did not look into it yet.

Another user...

Four hour session in my wildlife hide yesterday, 345 shots , no video , battery dead after 4 hours ! All max power saving options on, would be nice if I could even buy another battery !! Lens used 300mm f2.8 mkii on tripod, IS off, a fair bit of chimping which probably sucks the life out the battery

Yet another user...

I did shoot over 1000 images last week over two hours walking around the beach , plenty battery left, no chimping though

And another....

As others have already noted, this will vary greatly depending on usage. FWIW, my real-world sessions have mostly been with the 100-400 Mk II +1.4x III and I typically get 400-700 shots. I have had a few days were I got more, don't think I've ever had less.

To clarify a bit, last weekend I got approx 450 on a fresh LP-E6NH, that was one of my lowest but still fairly typical. Not too many bursts of more then 3-4 frames, but I was in a kayak so even when I wasn't tracking a bird in flight, the IBIS and lens IS were working overtime ALWAYS! If I'm just walking around the park or on a trail, I'll get better numbers, a couple of times over 800 but closer to 600 is the norm. Those sessions tend to have more bursts plus I'm shooting from a far more stable platform.

And more...

I pulled off around 2800 images on a 70% battery before it died while covering a house fire at night. 120hz high speed display, and pretty high brightness. Mainly remembered to turn the camera off between shots unless there was a lot of action going on, and all were shot at 12 fps. The camera turns on by the time you pull it up to your eye, so I never had any issue with the camera not being ready if it had been turned off.

I haven't had any issues with the battery life overall, I mainly just remember to swap batteries after every single shoot and I bring two spare LP-E6NH and one LP-E6N everywhere just in case.

As a bonus, you can charge the R5 while in operation using a power delivery USB-C power bank, which easily fits in a belt pack or pocket and would be easy to connect to charge while in a car, or during lulls in action. A power bank is also super easy to hang off a tripod for time lapses.

Plus a couple more pages of responses here, if you are interested: https://www.canonrumors.com/forum/threads/r5-battery-life.39225/

Obviously it's highly variable. It depends a lot upon the user themselves. If you shoot a lot of fast bursts and don't spend a lot of time composing with the electronic viewfinder or chimping with the rear LCD screen between shots, turn off WiFi/GPS, set the camera to go to sleep quickly you will probably get the most possible out of the batteries. Shooting equestrian action, you probably will want to keep the EVF set to the highest refresh rate (120hz) even though that will drain batteries faster.

Due to rolling shutter effect, you probably will want to stick with the mechanical shutter (12 frames/sec) and avoid the electronic shutter (20 frames/sec). I don't know how this would effect your battery life, one way or the other.

R5 uses LP-E6NH batteries that are considerably smaller than the LP-E19 used in your 1DXII. (R5 also can use the older LP-E6 and LP-E6N, but may not shoot at top speed and those batts cannot be recharged in-camera). You do have option of adding a BG-R10 battery grip to accommodate two batteries with the R5. One of the reasons I have not "upgraded" from my pair or 7D Mark II DSLRs to a couple R7 for equestrian photography is because that APS-C mirrorless model cannot accommodate a battery grip. This was utterly stupid of Canon, if you ask me. Using the same LP-E6NH and with a footprint nearly the same as the R5 and R6, so it wouldn't have taken much to make the R7 compatible with the BG-R10 too. But for some reason Canon didn't do that.

I have had a discussions with several people who have been using R7 extensively and they are seeing a lot more shots per charge than the camera is rated. One reported 4000 shots on a single battery, but I think they were doing a lot of 30 FPS bursts with the e-shutter, which will rack up a whole lotta shots in a very short period of time.

In the end, I don't believe Ken Rockwell's 10,000 shot figure is realistic. But I do think someone who uses reasonable power savings and avoids a lot of chimping can get 800 to 1500 per battery out of R5 or R7. Because I shoot between 1500 and 3000 images typically at an equestrian event, with R5 I'd want a battery grip for a 2nd battery and would carry at least two more spare batteries per camera. With an R7 that can't be fitted with a grip, I'd carry at least three spare batteries per camera. (Battery grips and extra batteries can add a lot of cost to the prospect of an "upgrade", at $75 per for Canon OEM or $60 each for quality 3rd party like Watson.)

I consistently get at least 2500 shots out of a pair of LP-E6N in my 7D Mark II's with their battery grips.... over 1200 shots per battery. Canon rated the 7DII to do 670 shots per charge, but that's with 50% usage of the built-in flash. R5 and R7 don't have built in flash, so comparisons are a bit difficult.

Some comments I've seen suggested a heavier power drain using IS lenses and the EF 100-400mm IS II in particular, but that hasn't been my experience at all with that lens or other IS lenses. I see almost no difference when using IS lenses with it enabled vs non-IS lenses used alongside.)

P.S. You also might need bigger memory cards and additional storage drives... going from a 20MP to 45MP!

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

If you are using the EVF which is amazing, the battery life will be significantly compromised. I have been shooting the R5 for a couple of years and fortunate for me I have about 10 batteries because the R5 replaced 3 previous bodies. I do use a battery grip and always throw a couple of extra batteries in the bag when I go out for a day of shooting. I have never calculated how many images I get from a set of batteries, but I have never been concerned about it either. I will say that Wasabi batteries are an excellent alternative to the more pricey Canon batteries. I use both.

Jimmy T Loc: Virginia

I have a Canon R5 and battery life has never been an issue for my shooting stills. I never shoot videos. However, typically I shoot only 200-300 shots per day during an outing. I also use the rear screen and "Chimp" all of the time. I do shoot short bursts of 3-7 shots. In short, I do everything that the experts tell me Not to do. Since I have three numbered batteries, I always carry a freshly charged spare in a pocket for backup. I shoot with them until they reach about 25% remaining charge or until a moment presents itself to swap out the low battery for the freshly charged unit. Unless I am on travel I rarely start out with a fully charged battery. I can imagine certain situations where I could really hammer a battery in the worst ways and get less than 1000 shots, but not at "normal operating temps" using genuine Canon batteries. This is not a slam, I just don't have any experience with Non-Canon batteries. This discussion is all very interesting and I am curious about the tests the "experts" ran on the Canon Eos R5 and the Canon batteries. In short, I can't imagine a situation in which I could exhaust two fully charged genuine Canon batteries in a single outing. Anyway, your experience may differ. . . .
Best Wishes,
JimmyT Sends

Tomfl101 Loc: Mount Airy, MD

Actually 350-400 per battery is about right for the weddings and sports I shoot. I use a combination of Canon and off-brand batteries costing between 30-$80. I usually bring 6 batteries to a job to be safe. At first it seemed ridiculous to need so many batteries, but I’ve gotten used to it. I use the view screen for live view shooting quite often and chimp constantly, so extending battery life by turning off the view screen is not really practical for me. The camera is just so excellent in every other way, the battery life issue is a minor problem, easy to overcome.

DanCulleton

With my R5 I routinely get up to 2,000 exposures per shoot with the battery well over 50% charge remaining. Better performance than my 5D4.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

I have used my R5 for about a year (I guess) and carry a spare battery. I have gone to the spare once open a cold day. I depends on you shooting habit, the tempiture etc.

Arizona Art Loc: SE Florida

I get about 700-800 shots per battery with screen turned on and moderate chimping. I use both Canon and Watson batteries. If I’m gonna take a lot of pics in a day I use the battery grip with one extra set of batteries. That’s good for 3k plus shots.

This is what I have found using my R5 with and RF800 mm lens and the RF100-500 zoom lens. The batteries don’t suddenly shut down the camera, I find that the shots per second start to slow when the battery is just about out of charge.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

I can’t speak directly to the R5 but in my experience shooting Nikon, Olympus and Panasonic mirrorless and have always gotten much better than the stated capacity without taking measures to mitigate. And yes, if you shoot burst mode you will get way over that rating.