G7 X Mark III - battery dying after 2-1/2 hours when using Webcam Beta, any advice?

[chrisgagne]

I am using a PowerShot G7 X Mark III hooked up to a MacBook Pro 13" directly with an genuine Apple USB-C cable. I am finding that the camera runs out of battery after 2-1/2 hours and shuts off. I thought the USB-C would be enough to operate the camera indefinitely; apparently not? Any advice?

[kvbarkley]

Many Canon cameras do not charge via the usb ports - the battery voltage is too high. You must charge the batteries in an external charger.

[Waddizzle]

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@kvbarkley wrote:

Many Canon cameras do not charge via the usb ports - the battery voltage is too high. You must charge the batteries in an external charger.

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Confirm that.  And, I would advise buying a spare battery.  Make sure it is a genuine Canon battery.  Buy it from them.

[chrisgagne]

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@kvbarkley wrote:

Many Canon cameras do not charge via the usb ports - the battery voltage is too high. You must charge the batteries in an external charger.

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This Canon does, and per the user manual it appears that the PD-E1 can power the camera while streaming. Unfortunately it seems that this is not the case with a USB-C connection to a computer (despite the fact that this should be able to provide ample power) and/or not when using the Webcam beta. I do get more than 90 minutes out of it so it seems SOME power is supplied, and if I take a break for an hour or two the battery is charged again, but this doesn't support my use case unfortunately. 😞

Swapping batteries isn't a solution when it dies after 2 hours and I've got 8 hours of meetings. Either I need to find a way to power this continuously (dummy battery?) or I've got to switch to a camera that doesn't have this limitation. 😞 That could be my EOS R with a dummy battery, but that feels like overkill especially with the glass I'd be using...

[kvbarkley]

I think you are reading too much into the manual

You can only use the adapter to charge the battery, and not only that, there is the curious "except when shooting.." clause which says to me that you can't shoot or stream with the adapter, either.

[chrisgagne]

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@kvbarkley wrote:

I think you are reading too much into the manual

You can only use the adapter to charge the battery, and not only that, there is the curious "except when shooting.." clause which says to me that you can't shoot or stream with the adapter, either.

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As I read it, "you can use the camera while charging the battery without removing it" seems pretty explicit. 😉

Obviously this doesn't work for my use case, though. Does anyone know if dummy batterys work well with this camera? Otherwise I have to return it as it is rather expensive for a webcam that only works 120 minutes on, 60 minutes off...

[kvbarkley]

The key is what is "use", all cameras have some subset of functions available when plugged into USB, at the very least you can download images, but not much beyond that.

[chrisgagne]

"Using USB Power Adapter PD-E1 (sold separately) enable you to shoot without worrying about the remaining battery level" (page 80)

"The battery pack is not charged if you stream while using USB Power Adapter PD-E1 (sold separately), and power is only supplied to the camera" (page 247)

Also seems pretty explicit 🙂

Granted not what I am doing (I am using USB-C connected to a MacBook Pro), but rather **bleep**ty of Canon to require a proprietary power supply when the MacBook is more than capable of delivering enough power. Given that the battery itself is only 3.6V at 1250mAh and USB-C can easily deliver 20V at 3A (60 watts, well beyond the 4.5Wh capacity of the battery)... this is poor engineering and/or **bleep** design, not a fundamental limitation of what they are working with here.

[kvbarkley]

It is probably because some folks will use older usb -> usb-c adapters which cannot supply the power.

[Gischgimmasch]

Hi Chris,

I hear you! Got the camera today, set everything up and then realised that it is not charing while used as a webcam. 

It receives power if I switch to an USB C - USB C cable but in that case Windows 10 does not recognise the camera at all.

The video quality is great. But there's no audio therefore I keep using my old webcam's microphones and activate its video too whenever the battery of my G7X runs empty.

Not what I was hoping for, but to shoot semi-professional videos it's worth the trade-off.

Best,

Phil