I got a few questions on the road recently from a couple other photographers about how my camera seemed to have infinite battery life since I had only swapped one battery in an R7 in a 15 hour day of shooting bazillions of pics. I told them I did only 'change' the battery once but I'd been charging it all day between stops and while it was in my bag over lunch. They asked how I pulled off that magic and I showed them the gear in the pictures.
I believe all the R-series bodies, and I know the R6mII, R7 & R8 will charge with any "PD" rated charger or battery brick I've used. The key is PD rating. That stands for Power Delivery and all my recent chargers and laptop have it but there are a million flavors out there like IQ etc so you just have to ensure PD is one of them. You can see from some of the pics that my battery brick and car adapter even have both the IQ and the PD on the same charger but only the PD side will negotiate a successful charge with the camera.
I'd get into the subtle wattage and cable details but since every PD laptop and charger I've run across seems to be at least 20 watts and the cables are USB-C on both ends there's not much to get confused with. I believe even Apple is expected to get on board with USB-C now so I can't see anyone having trouble sorting which cable goes with what anymore.
To be sure everything is always going to reliably work I refresh cables annually around the holidays and I'm currently running all Anker 310 series or better. It is possible very old cables won't negotiate the charge correctly but 310s are very inexpensive so just treat yourself if you don't have any.
The dual battery charger in the picture is plugged into the laptop with same USB-C/C cables and since it doesn't come with a wall adapter itself it's only $14. Works wonderfully connected to laptop, car adapter, or the white wall plug adapters (all PD rated of course). Those white adapters are $15 for a two pack on Amazon, completely affordable. The cameras will charge off the same laptop, car adapter or wall adapter mix and in the pictures I even have it charging off the 20000mAh battery brick ($39 on Amazon as well, easy buy).
The day I was getting the questions I was plugging the camera into the battery brick in my shoulder bag or a wall socket adapter on the bus we were riding around in at every opportunity. Eventually I got down to 25% on the first battery of the day and went ahead and swapped cause nobody wants a dead battery at a critical time. Rolled in with the same strategy on the second battery and ended the day wrapping with a dinner/awards banquet shoot and still 50% left on the second battery.
Felt like I had to share because I asked another Canon shooter where I am today if they did the same thing and they didn't know it was possible. It is definitely possible and you know it's working when you see the green light like in one of the pics. The light will go out when it's charged completely (I had to get used to that... figured it would be red while it's charging and green when done but red is when the card is read/writing so they went with green on then off).
I was also thinking about this because in a post about workflow yesterday I mentioned that I don't bother with pulling SD cards out anymore because I can plug the camera in, that triggers my software to open up in import, I name a new folder and file template and off it goes. I mix up a cocktail and when I'm back the pics are downloaded and named, the camera has timed out (I think I have it set for 2 mins but haven't verified) then the charging just starts. By the time I'm done with the editing the battery is charged, I do a quick backup to the external drive, format the card, drop it all back in the bag and everything is good to go. If I did use more than one battery I break out the K&F dual charger and everything is done at the same time and with my strategy I've never had to charge more than three batteries at a pop.
* I do rotate batteries on the weekend so I'm not just beating one up in the camera forever but that's the only time the battery door typically opens
** Look for PD rated chargers, battery bricks, and laptops and you'll have easy fast charging and minimal battery swaps on the road where it counts!!
~Chris
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