Canon LPE-19 battery lifespan

[dpastern]

Hi guys,

So, I've had my R3 since December 2022.  I've probably charged the LPE-19 battery 40-50 times over that time period.  Whilst doing a re-configure of my R3's settings, I checked the battery info sub menu and it recommended calibrating the battery, which I did tonight.  I did a re-calibrate and charged the battery afterwards.  I re-checked the R3's battery info sub-menu afterwards and it still says the battery should be calibrated.  Also, the recharge performance indicates 2 Green bars.  Looking at:

https://www.eos-magazine.com/articles/eospedia/batterycheck.html

it suggests between 500-1000 recharge cycles, which I am obviously nowhere near.  I would reasonably expect for the battery recharge performance to be still 3 Green bars, and for quite some time.  I have never had good performance from the battery, usually getting 500-700 shots from it per charge.  

This is a rather unsatisfactory performance.  Obviously batteries get a 1 year warranty in Australia, which doesn't cover the reasonable life of the product.  I do not have a spare battery, so I am hesitant to return it to Canon Australia, since it leaves me being unable to use said camera, and I am not in a financial position currently to afford to purchase another battery (nor should I have to - the current battery should last longer than ~50 charge cycles).

This is very disappointing.  I've been using 1 series cameras for over 20 years and every battery has been disappointing and underperforming.  

What are others thoughts on this?

Cheers,

Dave

[Peter]

Battery Life

With LCD Approx.860 shots (at 23°C)
With Viewfinder Approx. 620 shots (at 23°C)¹⁴

Seems normal.

To prolong your battery’s life, avoid keeping it fully charged or completely empty. Charge it before use.

[dpastern]

Interesting, as I see a lot of people using the R3 stating that they get 2.5-3k shots per charge, on a reliable basis.  I do some minor chimping, and I do have the rear LCD screen reversed and active.  I don't hold the assigned animal eye detect button my R3 down for long periods of time, but intermittently "pump" it to kickstart the AF systems to re-engage and focus on the bird again.  

My R3 is set to H mode for FPS as I am using an older mark 1 500mm prime (EF, Canon, not a 3rd party lens).  This means my DPAF coverage is 80% and I get half the frame rate with my old lens (vs a mark 2 EF lens or RF lens).  Canon CPS Australia advised me to change from H+ to H to better help AF accuracy and testing in the field has agreed with their assessment from my experiences.  

I have only had the battery full drain (both times in the field) twice since I got the camera.  I usually charge it before going into the field, and the battery may be anywhere between 20% and 80% or thereabouts.  I don't tend to charge the battery if it is near full (which is never good for LiON batteries).  

I just really expected 3 Green bars for recharge performance given the age of my battery and the amount of times I've recharged it since owning the camera, and tending to be careful how I charge the battery etc.  

Oh, and I typically remove the battery from the camera when its not in use, to avoid drain.  I didn't learn this until around a year after I got the camera.  I thought off was a true off, not a pseudo hibernation off.  I was experiencing the battery full draining over the course of 1-2 days with it in the camera and the camera set to "off" position (from near full to fully drained).  I have since, upon advice from other online communities, set the Network setting to disabled, and Aeroplane mode to "On" to mitigate this, and it has seemed to work.  It would be nice if the user manual gave handy hints like this...

Thanks for the response.  I still think I should have much better performance recharge than I have with this battery.  

Dave

[Peter]

It seems like you know how to take care of Li-ion batteries to prolong their lifespan. My LP-E6H went from three bars to two quite soon after I bought it. I usually charge my batteries to about 75%, and then to 100% before use.

I got around 3,000 exposures with my R6, but that was when I was testing the buffer capacity with electronic shutter and without AF.

 

[wq9nsc]

My 1DX II and 1DX III bodies also use LPE19 batteries and I use them heavily without special care and typically I get 3 to 4 years before performance is significantly off.  These bodies (four of them) get used in all sorts of conditions and I don't take any special care of the batteries.   

But the camera body probably has a big impact on their life.  These are DSLR bodies with a much lower power appetite and typically I will do a couple of sports events between recharging and after a couple of events (several thousand captures) they are down to around half charge.  I always have a couple of spare charged packs with me but they are just for good luck because I have never needed to change one while at an event. 🙂

The call for recalibration doesn't necessarily mean the performance has dropped off significantly but it is something to check after the recalibration.  Although it is recommended not to keep them charged to 100% for best battery life, extreme discharge is more taxing for them so if you want to take extra care of your batteries, don't discharge them too low but switch packs instead.  I usually have around 8 packs in circulation and I mark them with the date in-service to track it.  My oldest pack still in service is 3 months past the four year point and it was used in one of my 1DX III bodies in near freezing weather Saturday at a high school football playoff and with 1,200 exposures the battery level was still showing "full" when the game ended.  So that one will stay in service a bit longer.

For my 1 series cameras, I buy only Canon batteries.  In 20 years of shooting events in all sorts of weather with Canon 1 series DSLR bodies I have had a total of one glitch and that was due to a third party battery that couldn't maintain sufficient voltage under the heavy drain of long bursts in a 1D Mark II body resulting in a lockup that required a power cycle.  I bought the third party because none of the Canon dealers had the battery in stock; the third party worked fine for regular captures and short to medium burst but even with a full charge I could see the battery level drop during the burst before recovering when the shutter button was released.  So stick with Canon brand!

Rodger

[dpastern]

I am not a working pro and do not have ~2k AUD for 8 batteries to shuffle around.  I do want a 2nd battery, but money has been very tight for the past 14 months and I have not been able to afford it.  

I too only buy genuine Canon batteries, although there is probably little difference in technical features between genuine and 3rd party.  

I had a lot of problems with the older NIMH batteries with my original 1D and 1DIIn cameras.  I was getting around 150-200 shots per charge on average, consistently, across 4 batteries.  In the end, I made a decision to go to 3rd party batteries (that didn't perform any better) but were 1/4 the price of the genuine article.  If you're going to charge premium prices, then your product should offer a premium experience.  

[wq9nsc]

Dave, I use four bodies so I try to keep a pair of batteries for each and two batteries per body should work well for you.  With mirrorless, you definitely want a pair of batteries because for any extended shooting you are likely to exhaust the first battery before you are finished and that is particular true if using a lens with an optical stabilizer.

I have a Canon 5DS and a 5DS R body which use LP-E6 series batteries and for those I go aftermarket because I had horrible luck with the Canon brand batteries for them with even nearly new batteries refusing to accept a charge.  The aftermarket batteries seem more reliable in that sense although they don't provide as many exposures per charge but I don't use these 5 series bodies heavily like my 1 series bodies.

For the R-3, I would stick with Canon produced because one of the major differences between the lower cost and better cells used to make these packs is internal cell resistance which determines how much the output voltage drops under a sustained load.  This is where the aftermarket cells created problems with my earlier 1D series body and the R-3 is going to draw heavy sustained current if you are using it to shoot burst with servo AF and that is when the aftermarket packs will cause a problem.  There is no reason the aftermarket can't build packs with the same capability as the Canon packs but the selling point for aftermarket packs is generally low cost and an advertised higher amp/hour capacity but where they don't do well is sustaining current during a sustained burst.  If you are only shorting single shots or very short bursts (a second or less) then you likely won't have an issue with the aftermarket packs.

Rodger

[dpastern]

Yes, true Rodger, but 1 thing you have not mentioned is that Canon, like many big brands, over inflates the cost of their goods with very large profit margins, well above the base manufacturing costs.  3rd party options tend to inflate these margins to a lesser extent.  So, some of the reasoning for them being cheaper isn't lesser quality products, but smaller product margins.  

Sustained current delivery is difficult for the ordinary user to measure with any degree of accuracy and requires a dedicated and specialised test bench.  I see a lot of people spouting nonsense without any electrical proof, they're just mimicking what they've been told by others (3rd party bad).  I'm not saying that there isn't bad 3rd party options - there are.  What I am saying is that just cos it's 3rd party doesn't necessarily mean it is inferior to genuine batteries.  

I want a 2nd battery, but they are expensive (typically ~240AUD).  

[wq9nsc]

Dave, I was curious after my experience and I do have the test gear to do precision electronic measurement so I did some testing of the offending batteries and the results were interesting.  The voltage level under load between the Canon and the aftermarket batteries was identical for almost 2 seconds under load but after that there was a "knee" in the output of the aftermarket.  I have a feeling it was a heating issue given how cleanly it showed up, probably a connection point between some of the cells but both of the aftermarket packs presented almost identical voltage curves.

Do you have battery pack rebuilders down under?  That is a good option here to renew some battery packs and some of the third party packs used to be assembled with screws instead of heat welding the plastic making them easy to rebuild.  With that approach, the rebuilder will let you choose the quality of cells used to rebuild the pack.

There is no reason a third party pack can't be built as well or better than Canon but the market for a high end 3'rd party pack is pretty small so their market niche is in the lower price offering.  If I found a high end third party battery, I wouldn't hesitate to use it but they seem to be difficult to find.  I am not anti-aftermarket and I much prefer Sigma's 50 f1.4 "art" series lens to Canon's offering.

You could try looking at reviews at the big U.S. stores (B&H and Adorama) to see how some of the third party batteries review.  I would stay away from Amazon because too often the brand name remains the same while the quality of the parts used to build are constantly changing.

Rodger

[dpastern]

I prefer Canon for peace of mind, but if I'm getting reliability issues after not even 3 years and between 50-80 charge cycles, then there's an issue with Canon's QA imho (and the battery conveniently gets only a single year warranty).  And if that is the case, what differentiates the product from 3rd party products?   Canon knows that 0.0000000001% of batteries will have issues within that first year, but probably 20% have issues by the 3rd year.  It's like insurance scams - they play the number game.  Canon isn't the only manufacturer to exhibit this behaviour.