SX280 - battery life shooting video

[factoryguy]

UPDATED May 5:

I apologize to the forum for mixing two different problems.  They are unrelated.

Problem #1:  User error.  I thought I was using a class 6 SD card but I was wrong. The yellow "!" indicates a pathologically slow card.  Upgrading to a class 10 resolved this problem.

Problem #2: UNRESOLVED.  Red battery indicator comes on prematurely.  On a fresh charge, it'll turn red after recording for a couple of minutes.  On a partially drained battery, it turns red immediately upon entering movie mode or pressing the record button.  Turn the camera off and then right back on in "still" mode and it shows full charge and works fine ... until trying to shoot video.  I have not precisely measured recording times but it'll record for at least 20 (maybe 30?) minutes while flashing red.

[ortys90]

Guys, Canon Will release this software update also for italy and italian language?

[dswansonil]

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@RCJ wrote:

I'd rather have a camera with 2AA batteries, as well. Show me one in this class, and I'd buy it. My point was simply that the battery time for video in this class of cameras is generally poor. I agree that for this price, it should be better.

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Just as a point of reference as I'm looking at some competing 1080/60p zoom cameras, here's the specs I found:

                            CIPA Shots            Battery Mah            Shots/Mah        Shots/Mah increase

SX280                  210                         1000                        .210                       ------

HX50V                 400                         1240                        .323                       150%

HX300                 310                         1240                        .250                       120%

ZS30                    300                         1250                        .240                       115%

It appears that the 280 is the worst performer re power efficiency of the bunch.  And the others at least try to compensate for the power drain by having a higher battery capacity. 

[pawl]

Dumb question, but can we use higher power batteries in the 280?

[bkoldys]

Thats a good question. I have ordered some 1600 MA NB-6L replacement batteries from Amazon. Should have

them in a day or so. That was my line of thinking. So at least I will have a handful of batteries. I will see if they make

any difference

[filipb]

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@bkoldys wrote:

Thats a good question. I have ordered some 1600 MA NB-6L replacement batteries from Amazon. Should have

them in a day or so. That was my line of thinking. So at least I will have a handful of batteries. I will see if they make

any difference

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Very interesting experiment!  Keep us posted ...

[dswansonil]

Yes, I agree.  There are a similar replacement batteries for the HX50V and the ZS30 at 1600 and 1700 Mah respectively.  They all ought to provide proportional increases over the standard batteries and it would be nice to see some real world data.

[bkoldys]

Coming today, will charge one up and post tonight.

[RCJ]

People have been using higher-rated replacement batteries throughout this process. I'm using a Wasabi 1300 ma battery that works fine. Not sure if it lasts longer than the OEM, but both are basically getting me through a day of shooting after the firmware upgrade. 

[dswansonil]

My focus has been on video so what I'd really like would be an a vs b comparision of the 1080p video shooting time with maybe a couple of zooms and a couple of full camera shut downs. Any comparison would be good though.

[ThomasDavies]

Should i buy this camera? Is it worth the money??