03Aug Battery Management on your film project.
I see people spend a bunch of money on camera gear, but the batteries needed to run that camera gear are often overlooked. If you’re just working as a photographer, having only 2 batteries would probably be fine, but if you’re using your camera for film making don’t expect much more then an hour and half out of a single LP-E6 or LP-E8 battery and that’s optimistic
The price of official Canon batteries can be costly. If you don’t have a large budget to work with consider generic decoded batteries. You can buy good decoded LP-E8 batteries for about $14 a battery compared to Canon’s $40 a battery and good decoded LP-E6 batteries for about $16 a battery compared to Canon’s $65 a battery. Avoid the extremely cheep decoded batteries as many of them use bad or unreliable cells. They’ll either die after a few chargers or not provide a very long battery life.
Charge all of your batteries before you start filming. Mark each of the batteries as you remove them from the charger with either a rubber band or plastic cover so that you know exactly what batteries have been charged. If you have multiple types of batteries its a good idea to put them in zipper bags. Some battery types look very similar so if you need to send someone to grab batteries for you it’s much easier to say, “grab a couple of batteries out of the green bag” then it is to try and describe what the battery looks like.
Plan ahead, if you don’t have access to electricity on set you’re going to need more batteries. If you do have power, be sure to put each used battery back on the charger as you go. The rule of thumb is that it takes twice as long to charge a battery as it does to deplete it. So keep that in mind when you’re trying to decide how many batteries you need for your kit.
Not everyone needs to film for 8 or 10 hours at a time, if you only film 10 min here and there maybe you really don’t need that many batteries. But if you know you’ll need to shoot multiple takes and work throughout a whole day of shooting, don’t skimp out on batteries, you need them. Just compare the cost of batteries to the time wasted waiting for batteries to charge and the proposition starts to make a lot more sense.
August 3rd, 2012 at 9:54 am
Any tips on a good battery charger for the LP-E8 batteries?
August 3rd, 2012 at 10:07 am
I have a couple of these
plus the charges that came with my two t2i’s. That’s enough to charge 4 batteries at a time. They say canon on them, but i’m pretty sure they’re clones.
August 3rd, 2012 at 10:44 am
Those come with a cable, right? They don’t picture any cable. Good price. They work well enough for you I take it?
August 3rd, 2012 at 1:09 pm
It does include a 1.5 meter cable, and it works with both my official canon batteries as well as my decoded batteries. I haven’t had a problem with it. The build quality is better then the ultra cheap $2 charges, but it doesn’t quit feel as good as the actual canon chargers.
August 3rd, 2012 at 10:47 am
If you filming in studio or at home – power adapter would be better than tons of batteries. I have a used Canon adapter – works like a charm.
August 3rd, 2012 at 1:11 pm
That’s a good point, if you have access to power it can be a good option. Most of the time I’m moving cameras around so much that it’s just easier to keep 8 or so batteries with me and charge every night.
August 5th, 2012 at 10:13 pm
One thing I do is I have all of my batteries labeled (A,B,C,D…etc.) Then I always use them in order. That way I know if I pull out battery “C” then “A” and “B” are already dead.
This also lets me know where I am as far as remaining power.
February 16th, 2014 at 8:01 am
Is the level of charge on the Wasabi batteries visible on the camera? I’ve read that the 3rd party ones don’t have a chip and therefore can’t be read by the camera leaving you never knowing when they’re about to cut out. Also they don’t last as long.
I was going to use a Canon T3i (600D) as the 2nd cam on a video shoot coming up but the footage I’ve seen online was soft in comparison to the 5DMkII. Obviously what lens is attached is vitally important but do you find the quality is the similar if not the same?
February 16th, 2014 at 8:17 am
If you are on the hunt for Generic LP-E6 or LP-E8 batteries, make sure you look for batteries that have “decoded” in the label. The “decoded” batteries usually report the correct battery indication in camera.
As for the t3i as a second camera, the sensor in the t3i is the same as the t2i through 7d APS-C cameras. While it’s not full frame, it’s just as capable of being a second camera as pretty much any other camera in canon’s line.
January 4th, 2016 at 8:11 am
It sounds like one needs 3 sets of batteries.
While A and B get used, in the time it takes C to charge.
But A was being charged while B & C is used. So A is ready again.
So as long as you keep recharging as soon as one drains, one can get by with three.