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.

[iamgeorge]

@dmw

Is there any way of looking at the system settings to find the firmware version that was loaded in HK. Can you post if you find it.

Were you shooting the movie at 30fps? Can you try shooting movies at 60fps and post results on battery life / time.

Yeah, I can live with 30 minutes of battery life on a good $180 camera. $20 will get you 2 Wasabi 1300mah batteries and a car charger on Amazon.

[dswansonil]

The reported results aren't much different than what I found months ago.  You can get 25-30 minutes of video if you don't zoom and you don't mind the uncertainty of the flashing low battery indicator.  That just wasn't good enough for me.

[bradmoss]

I cant take 6 minutes zooming, it would quite an improvement for me

[dmw]

As far as I know, the camera does not have a setting which displays the current firmware version.

[bradmoss]

you have to connect the camera  to a computer using the USB cable, right click over the icon that represents it and look the properties of the camera. That's the way.

[dmw]

@bradmoss: OK I did that and it says Firmware version: 1-14.0.1.0

What does yours say?

[bradmoss]

Sorry, mine says that too but it is not the firmware version.

I used the Canon Utilities that came with the Camera CD, did you install them? The program is CameraWindow, there on top of the main window it says "Firmware Version: 1.0.2.0"

[dmw]

OK, camera window says 1.0.2.0. So no difference unless there are unshown variations. At the service centre, they told us that the version they would install is not on the web site, and this is 1.0.2.c. But maybe they were lying just to make us feel like this would be a solution (what doctors call the placebo effect). However, what I can say is that the original camera, out of the box (Nov-2013), came with 1.0.2, because when I tried to install the upgrade from the web site it said that I already had that version. And there is a big improvement after getting it back from the service centre. So maybe they do have this internal firmware variant that they are testing, with different voltage-sensor thresholds. Another possibility these thresholds only affect SOME SX280 cameras, which is why they have not put the firmware on their web site because it would not be suitable for all of them.

[UnionStation]

Am I the only one here baffled that people are trying so hard to make this camera work? Isn't that Canon's job?

Multiplying the LOL factor - some of the people working hardest here to try to figure this camera's problems out are the same ones who claimed the rest of us.were exaggerating.

The sx280 is so broken that not even Cannon can figure it out.

[peterdev]

Does anyone have any valid updates on how to solve the battery problem?