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.

[chrisgagne]

It was plugged into a MacBook Pro that can deliver 15 watts via USB-C (the cables easily handle 5A, which is plenty). The Canon NB-13L battery is only 4.375 watt hours and powers video recording for at least an hour. There is absolutely no way the Canon requires even 15 watts of demand when recording video as the battery would last less than 18 minutes in that condition.

This isn't about the USB -> USB-C adapters. The fundamental issue is that Canon seems to have deliberately designed a product to not operate while using power from USB-C so that they can charge you hundreds of dollars for a dummy battery pack instead of you using a readily available, industry-standard power adapter that you likely already have.

Shame on Canon for their blatant cash grab from their loyal consumers. Fool me once...