Low Battery Voltage and AutoFocus On R10

[Cantrell]

All,

I have a R10 and I have two questions. First, will a low battery affect the functions of the camera? In particularly the Auto Focus and High Speed Continuous shooting. Second, when you are using Auto Focus do you need to adjust your focus with the focusing ring on the lens or does pressing the Shutter Button half way down to initiate Auto Focus suffice? Thank you in advance for your responses.

Reese 

[stevet1 · Accepted solution]

Reese,

With respect to your second question:

If you have the switch on the side of your lens moved to pointing at AF, then yes, a simple half-press of the shutter will initiate auto focusing by your camera.

Some lenses have something called Electronic Full-time Manual Af that allows you to manually turn the focus ring and adjust focus, even if you are in autofocus. Check the manual for your lens to see if it has this feature.

As far as your first question is concerned, yes, you probably will notice your camera slowing down as the battery gets low on power. I'd strongly encourage you to buy a spare battery, so that you can be recharging one, while you continue to shoot with the other.

Steve Thomas

[Cantrell]

Stevet1,

Thank you for your response.

Reese

[Waddizzle]

Yes, most likely. Most Canon DSLRs would have reduced frame rates once battery dropped below 50%.  This was done to help reduce battery drain. I would expect the same behavior in MILC bodies. 

[Cantrell]

Waddizzle,

Thank you for your response.

Reese

[Tronhard]

Absolutely, I have experienced the effect of low battery causing issues with shutter speed and autofocus on several cameras.  Remember these batteries are powering autofocus motors and the shutter mechanism and on high speed it creates a significant battery drain, especially if the camera is focusing with each shot, which is a possibility - and that is with the much bigger LP-E6 series of batteries that hold a lot more charge capacity.

There are ways to reduce battery drain.  If your camera has a continuous mode in the focus menu, turn it off - basically it makes the camera autofocus the lens continuously, whether you are using it or not, and it's a throwback. If you want to track subjects turn on servo mode - that will track as long as you half press the shutter button.

Personally, I don't like having focus assigned to the shutter button and use the method called Back Button Focus, which uses (the already assigned) AF-On button as your focusing button and disables it from the shutter button.  If you have servo mode on, then to focus on a static subject, you TAP the AF-On button, it finds focus and stops focusing.  If you want to track a moving subject then HOLD the AF-ON button and it will do so.  By using this method, you are not running continuous autofocus unless you need to use it.  See this video from Canon on the subject: 

Similarly, if you don't need to be using high frame rates turn them down or go to single shot.

I hope this helps

[Cantrell]

Trevor,

Thank you very much for the wonderful suggestions and video. It is very helpful.

Reese

[stevet1]

Reese,

Trevor has given you some great tips:

1) Go into your menus and disable Continuous Autofocusing, From what I've seen, it causes more problems than it solves. Your manual should tell you how to do that.

2) Learn how to set up back button focusing. Once I started using that, I never looked back.

3) Put your camera in AI Servo mode. Once you start using back button focusing combined with Servo, you don't need Single Single Shot any more. The only advantage with Single Shot is that you get a focus confirmation and your camera won't won't take a picture unless it has achieved focus.

One other thing I would add, is that, if you haven't done so yet, do download your manual in pdf format. Using a pdf reader like Adobe will let you search for specific terms and questions.

Steve Thomas

[Cantrell]

Stevet1,

The information that Trevor and everyone was extremely helpful. I have downloaded the Advanced Users Guide and found a copy on eBay. The Users Guide is very good. Thanks again for all of these suggestions. I need all of them that I can get.

Reese