Does Live View Eat Batteries or What?

J

Jeff Fillmore

Member
I spent 4 hours at DHS and DTD last night- took about 400 pictures- and totally depleted TWO fully charged batteries. ; ???

I don't know why- I use to be able to seemingly shoot all day- heck all weekend- on a single battery. ; The bulk of what I shot yesterday was trying to give me some HDR stuff to play with when I get CS5- so 90% of my shots were on a tripod and 9 shot / 9 stop brackets. ; I did use live view a lot for composing the shots (I find this helps me with UWA composition for some reason) but still- 400ish / 9 = 45 or so setups with the tripod using live view maybe 30 seconds per setup? ; So 20-30 minutes maximum of live view kills two batteries? ; Has anyone else experienced this? ; It kind of seems a little extreme to me. ; One or maybe both of the batteries were brand new too- I just got two new ones so I have three total (but I only took two with me.)
 
Yes, LV eats batteries. ; The LCD refresh rates are why.

Also, how long are your exposures? ; Long exposures eat battery as well as it takes power to hold the mirror up.
 
Yeah- that's a good point. ; There were a lot of long exposures mixed in there too. ; (at least after it dawned on me that the auto-iso was on after an hour or so- doh!)
 
That does sound a little extreme. ; How many shots do you typically get on your camera without live view?

My camera is rated for 950 shots - though shooting OVF only, no flash, etc can rattle off well into the thousands. ; Using live view (I use live view a lot for night shots - I like setting up on tripod and angling the LCD towards me, plus can accurately manual focus if need be in very low light). ; I've spent a day shooting around Epcot - few hundred pics or so, then spent an entire magic hour evening doing live view tripod night shooting...it's not been a problem using just the one battery for the whole day and night, and still have a small charge left on the cam. ; I'd take a wild guess and say I could shoot 400-500 shots in live view, including setup time and review time in between too. ; I'd expect to be able to shoot live view the whole day on one battery.
 
I never really counted but I'm sure 1000 or so 'regular' pics on a battery is not out of line. ; To be honest I have just had the one battery for quite a while and it was never a problem anything I did.
 
I never use live view, but I have found that the long exposures do cut down on my battery life. ; Were you using the EnEL3 in the body or the EnEL4 in the grip? ; I can take 1000 "regular" pics with the EnEL4 in the grip and still have a half charge left.
 
I defiantly find the battery grip useful in supplying fresh juice when using LV for those situations that warrant using it.
 
"mSummers" said:
Were you using the EnEL3 in the body or the EnEL4 in the grip? ; I can take 1000 "regular" pics with the EnEL4 in the grip and still have a half charge left.
Click to expand...

EnEL3a- I am not a big fan of the grip so I sold it. ; When I had it I just put rechargeable AA's in it though and it seemed to work forever.
 
I dont really use live view. thanks for the tip though on battery use using it.
I too have found that long exposures seem to suck battery life faster.
 
"Jeff Fillmore" said:
Yeah- that's a good point. ; There were a lot of long exposures mixed in there too. ; (at least after it dawned on me that the auto-iso was on after an hour or so- doh!)
Click to expand...

Forgetting to turn off Auto-ISO for tripod shots...guilty. ; Though I am getting better as I try to go through my pre-shoot zero out settings.
 
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