Canon LP-E12 Battery - Did not perform well in SX70 HS (or did it?)

[richapple]

I'm used to using low self-discharge AA batteries (Powershot S3 IS), and now with a new SX70 HS camera, I'm finding the Canon LP-E12 battery that came with it is either not a low-self discharge lithium-ion (where the battery keeps plenty of charge for weeks or months when not in use), or there's something wrong.

I put the fully charged LP-E12 into the brand new SX70 HS around April 15, took only 2 GB of images/movies (71 Fine-Large JPGs and 15 short MP4s), and today, about 20 days later, the battery indicator turned red/blinking and the battery needed to be recharged. I did do some turning on of the camera here and there without taking pictures, just to start learning the menus/settings, etc...

The specs show 255 images as the least one battery can deliver (using the electronic viewfinder and not having "Eco" set to on).

I have more Canon LP-E12 batteries as I plan to use them for 10 to 12 day backpacking trips, but... At this rate I'll have to swap out food for piles and piles of batteries.

Anyone have experience with this camera or similar using these batteries. Should a well-charged battery be okay to sit in the camera unused for a few weeks and still hold its charge?

Thanks for any info,

Rich

[Tronhard]

I have had the SX??X series from the 40-60 versions and found that leaving batteries in the camera does result in a long-term discharge.  I would suggest trying to keep the battery out of the camera for a period re-install it and see if the charge holds.   My personal experience with Canon, Fuji, Nikon, Olympus and Sony cameras is much the same across all brands.
I have multiple batteries and charge them up just before I go on a shoot, even the spares (i.e. not in a camera) can lose charge over time.  One of the reasons I prefer larger bodies is the ability to have a battery grip that doubles (or in the case of Fuji, triples) the battery capacity for a shoot.  In your scenario, just having spares along for the trip should work fine.

[richapple]

I'm guessing by "Long Term Discharge" in the camera you might mean longer than just 3 weeks. But wondering if things that are set that the camera remembers (SX70 remembers if your last shot was set to close-up - so turning on again is still in close-up mode. Something I'll have to get used to, as different than the older S3 IS...) are written to stored memory that doesn't need power. So removing the battery won't change setup choices?

Can and will try just popping the battery out if not using for more than a couple days...

Did look at the battery manufacturing dates, and the one that came with the camera (recent purchase) was 2021/09/09. Was kind of hoping it would show something ancient, like when the SX70 first came out, 'cuz recyclables cannot be left to just sit around neglected for years and years. (new ones purchased dated 2022/02/26)

Thanks again for info, Trevor!

Rich

[richapple]

In case anyone bumps into this Q&A thread, I'm pretty sure my non-photo-taking usage (to start learning the camera functions/settings) of the SX70 was the main culprit for the LP-E12 battery to not perform up to spec in terms of number of photos/videos it should be able to capture. The fully charged battery back into the camera for a number of long test videos (just on a tripod aimed out the window with only occasional squirrels and robins to liven up the scene) did add up to more than the 85 minutes spec (about 100 minutes).

Since I'm further testing allowing the fully charged battery to just sit for 3 weeks then do the same test, I'm waiting to mark anything as "accepted as solution," as I'll then run the same test to see if self-discharge happens at all in the 3 week time frame. (Probably won't be testing self-discharge just while sitting in the camera, 'cuz I've got to better learn the camera using other batteries before heading into the wilderness backpacking with it. It is quite a leap from the Powershot S3 IS!)

In short, thus far seems to point to user error/user misunderstanding to question the battery or a camera power consumption issue... Will update with further results and mark as solved in a while!

[Tronhard]

Certainly, operation of the camera for extended video use is one of the highest demands you can get and would certainly explain some of the issue. Conventional wisdom suggests that leaving batteries in camera bodies is not recommended, or even leaving them fully charged for long period - I have seen that in the documentation of some of my cameras. When I have left fully-charged batteries for some time, I have varied results: a few held their full charge, and then there was a vast range from partly to fully-discharged: especially 3rd party ones.  That experience is over about 80 batteries.

I get mains powered chargers (when they don't come with the camera) and charge the batteries the night before I shoot.

[richapple · Accepted solution]

I am going to tie a bow on this thread and even accept this as a solution. I was wrong about my initial post. There was nothing wrong with my SX70 HS or the LP-E12 Canon battery. The battery performs very well for normal usage and does yield the rough estimate of photos/videos. That estimate is based on normal usage (CIPA is something to Google), and that means taking some photos or videos, turning the camera off, then turning it on now and then and taking some more... My "testing" involved just doing long videos, one after the other (boring still setting out a window, though a squirrel or two livened some parts up), and that not involving camera-on/camera-off/zooming/focussing/changing settings. The 85 minutes of video in the specs were surpassed to almost 2 hours.

Trevor makes good points about maybe not leaving batteries in the camera over long periods and that yes, shooting videos is high battery usage. But for what I was worried about, I'll probably have more battery power on a 12 day backpacking trip than I'll need. (I'll have a few Canon brand batteries.)

One more point it to watch out for counterfeits. Just like some non-Canon LP-E12 compatibles, counterfeits that I bought unknowingly didn't give great results and didn't communicate with the camera the way real Canon batteries do - or probably it's that they aren't "readable" by the camera. Zero warning that the battery is low. Zero automated stop/save and shut down like the Canon batteries do on the SX70... (camera just dies, with the lens out and so forth, no save of the image it was capturing)

I got fully refunded for the counterfeits and at $32 compared to more typical mid $50s per battery, I did assume the very reputable online site (actually a near legendary audio equipment company) just had a reasonable price. I talked with a Canon phone person to verify the packaging/behavior of the batteries meant they were no doubt counterfeit, but I honestly don't think the company selling these bought into the fact that the very very well-done "Canon" batteries weren't. They still offer them at that price and may have just refunded my money with a yeah-yeah, here ya go whiner type attitude... So be warned.