T2i Short Battery Life - Buy 10?

canon ACK e8 power cable for t2i 550d kiss rebel close up picture

canon ACK e8 power cable for t2i 550d kiss rebel close up picture

J Davis said:
I picked up a tether which works for most of my shoots LINK
then again I don't do much hand held
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jmmusic said:
J,

Does the power adapter connect (to the coupler inserted into the body) via the little rubber lift on the side on the body next to the battery compartment? I can't see how it would connect otherwise.

Also, for those "cheapies" among us, can you tell us the proper specs of the AC block? May be more economical to pick-up the coupler and add you own wallwart.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/676244-REG/Canon_4518B001_DR_E8_DC_Coupler.html


Thanks.

John
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Does this help? (ack-e8 specs)
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JAWflyer3 said:
I meant like do the batteries communicate with the camera to at least display if they are full/half/empty and not a last minute "OH SNAP CHANGE YOUR BATTERY DOOD!" warning :happy:
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I don't think thats how the T2i battery works. Battery capacity is measured by the voltage of the battery. It drops as the battery is depleted. The battery doesn't "talk" to the camera about how much charge is left. The camera can do this by itself. Think about it this way, why build a battery with a complex circuit that can measure its own capacity when you can put that circuit into the camera? It cuts the cost to produce the battery without altering the performance. Batteries these days do have circuits for certain data and functions that need to persist with the battery but all cameras should be able to tell how much charge is left without any of that.

This is why devices that use "dumb" batteries like AA/AAA/C/D still have gauges. They use the voltage level in the batteries with a known depletion curve.
 
shaocaholica said:
I don't think thats how the T2i battery works. Battery capacity is measured by the voltage of the battery. It drops as the battery is depleted. The battery doesn't "talk" to the camera about how much charge is left. The camera can do this by itself. Think about it this way, why build a battery with a complex circuit that can measure its own capacity when you can put that circuit into the camera? It cuts the cost to produce the battery without altering the performance. Batteries these days do have circuits for certain data and functions that need to persist with the battery but all cameras should be able to tell how much charge is left without any of that.

This is why devices that use "dumb" batteries like AA/AAA/C/D still have gauges. They use the voltage level in the batteries with a known depletion curve.
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wow I should have known this :embarasse thank you though. I think I might just get the battery grip and run AA batteries, then when i find a second battery pack I can run two at once
 
Thanks, J.

On topic: I, also, purchased a $12 battery from imode on ebay. Once I receive it and test it out, I'll chime back in on this thread.
 
Still waiting for someone to report back on the Ebay 3rd party batteries form imode. But I bought one anyway to test it out. It was $12. I'll report back after I use it a few times.

I purchased a few 3rd party batteries form china for my Canon HF camcorder, and they worked like a charm. Except that there was no battery meter. Which actually wasn't too big of a deal for me. I got use to it.

Anyways.... I'll report back!
 
My imode batteries from eBay arrived yesterday. So for those keeping track, I ordered on 3/16/10 (although it probably wasn't until 3/17 that they got it in Hong Kong), I got shipping info on 3/20/10, and it reached West Coast USA (Seattle) on 3/26/10. That's not too shabby.

I won't get a chance to really test out the batteries until tomorrow, but on the possible good side the T2i recognized the battery when I plugged it in and the battery meter told me that it was fully charged. That was a big fear of mine put to rest. (although I do want to see what happens when one runs down all the way).

One note about build quality: they seem to be slightly shorter than the Canon made batteries, and therefore don't quite click into the charger all the way. However, the charger still recognizes them and the light clicks on to show it's charging, so I guess no biggie. They also pop out of the T2i fine, so no problems with getting stuck as I've seen with other knockoff batteries.


All of this is judged by one battery out of the 10 I bought, so there could be variables. Although honestly I'm not sure if I'll ever get to use all 10 of these. It just seemed like a good deal :) I'll report back again in the next few days to say how they worked, so you might want to hold off until then before buying any.
 
Thanks for the update. I'll be interested in seeing your results when you run down the battery. We need a few more batteries for our cams so if the camera registers remaining voltage in the battery, buying these would be a no brainer. Thanks again!

Chris W
 
i have the battery grip for my T2i and have yet to try the cartridge with AA's. Has anyone tried this? Can you tell me how long the AA's will last inside of the cam?
 
as a general rule the AAs will last shorter than the rechargeable battery. Or at least that is true for every battery grip in the past.
 
Well, it started raining yesterday as I was testing the camera outside, so I didn't get to run it as much as I'd hoped. Instead today I just ran the camera on a static shot until the battery died. I've done this twice now, and it reveals a weird habit for the batteries.

I'm finding that the battery probably lasts for about an hour of constant recording (maybe a bit longer), however, the meter shows it to be at full life for most of this time. When it drops down to the half battery meter icon there's only about 7 minutes of battery life yet. And when it drops down to flashing red it will only last for about a minute or two. The official Canon batteries seem to be more accurate at judging battery life, where you can run at the half battery icon for a considerable time.

I don't think this is a dealbreaker though. With 10 of them I'll just switch out when the icon drops to half (or some convenient time after that).


On a side note (and perhaps I should start a new thread), has anyone noticed that when you run the T2i on a static frame that you can record about 15 minutes or so of footage instead of the usual 12 minutes? I wonder why that is.
 
drcheese said:
Well, it started raining yesterday as I was testing the camera outside, so I didn't get to run it as much as I'd hoped. Instead today I just ran the camera on a static shot until the battery died. I've done this twice now, and it reveals a weird habit for the batteries.

I'm finding that the battery probably lasts for about an hour of constant recording (maybe a bit longer), however, the meter shows it to be at full life for most of this time. When it drops down to the half battery meter icon there's only about 7 minutes of battery life yet. And when it drops down to flashing red it will only last for about a minute or two. The official Canon batteries seem to be more accurate at judging battery life, where you can run at the half battery icon for a considerable time.

I don't think this is a dealbreaker though. With 10 of them I'll just switch out when the icon drops to half (or some convenient time after that).


On a side note (and perhaps I should start a new thread), has anyone noticed that when you run the T2i on a static frame that you can record about 15 minutes or so of footage instead of the usual 12 minutes? I wonder why that is.
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Thanks for the report. The reason you can record up to 15 minutes on a static shot is because the Canons use a variable bit rate recording scheme.
 
Good news on the batteries.. I find the 7D camera and the batteries very poor overall in showing the time left and the amount of time still on the Card. I'm spoiled by my HMC150 which gives me time down to the exact minute.
 
Received the imode battery off of ebay. Charges fine in the Canon battery charger, but I had to give it an extra nudge to fully seat in the charger. Not a big deal. Same amount of charging time as the stock Canon battery.

Put it in the T2i and shot for well over an hour or so this morning. I didn't notice it working any differently than the stock Canon battery. We'll see, though...

For $12... um, yeah.
 
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