Posted by Cynthia Spence on February 16, 2009 at 12:17 PM
Hi,
Just out of curiosity, would leaving your camera on actually conserve battery time? I have a Canon 40D, use the live view quite a bit, which eats up battery life. I seem to be able to almost fill up a 4GB card with it...but it gets dangerously low very fast. I have the camera set to go off in 8 minutes, but wondering if the sensor cleaning, which is fabulous by the way, eats up more battery life each time I turn it on and off than just leaving it on.
Thanks,
Cynthia
Posted by Steve Foss on February 16, 2009 at 12:28 PM
Cynthia, can you turn the sensor cleaning option off? If you can, that's what I'd do, and then you can just turn the camera off whenever you want without worrying about more battery drain. And you can turn it back on when you want the sensor cleaning function to work.
In case you don't have more than one battery, VERY inexpensive and effective batteries for your 40D can be found at http://www.SterlingTek.com. We're talking like $25 shipped for two BP-511 equivalent batteries. They're all I've been using for the last three years.
Posted by John Mumaw on February 16, 2009 at 1:03 PM
It's the Live View that's using a lot of the juice.
Like Steve, I've only used SterlingTek batteries for my Canon DSLRs for years now. They're a fraction of the price of the OEM battery, and more powerful, to boot!
Posted by Cynthia Spence on February 16, 2009 at 2:50 PM
Thanks guys...I have 3 batteries...two from Sterlingtek. I don't really want to turn the sensor cleaning off because this is a new camera since July, and I haven't had to clean my sensor yet...so it works! So I guess you're right doesn't really matter until I switch lenses out. It's habit...kind of like turning the lights off when you leave a room...but it occurred to me that it might take more energy turning it on all the time than leaving it on when out and about for the day. Just wondered if anyone had bothered to see if there was difference.
Posted by Larry Puckett on February 17, 2009 at 9:46 AM
You can easily disable the sensor cleaner and then do them selectively. In the menus go to the second wrench icon (this is for the 50D but should be similar for the 40D) and select sensor cleaning. Under that option you can disable auto cleaning and also do a clean now cycle whenever you want to. I find the fact that sensor cleaning activates when the camera is turned on and off a bit annoying--once a cycle would seem to be enough to me. However, I really doubt it uses up much juice. The live view screen is the real culprit here however it is very useful for landscape and macro focusing, previews, and evaluating the histogram before snapping the shutter. Even though the 50D has a much improved screen, I think I'm going to start hauling a shade cloth along for those really bright settings--Larry
Discussion
4 repliesJust out of curiosity, would leaving your camera on actually conserve battery time? I have a Canon 40D, use the live view quite a bit, which eats up battery life. I seem to be able to almost fill up a 4GB card with it...but it gets dangerously low very fast. I have the camera set to go off in 8 minutes, but wondering if the sensor cleaning, which is fabulous by the way, eats up more battery life each time I turn it on and off than just leaving it on.
Thanks,
Cynthia
In case you don't have more than one battery, VERY inexpensive and effective batteries for your 40D can be found at http://www.SterlingTek.com. We're talking like $25 shipped for two BP-511 equivalent batteries. They're all I've been using for the last three years.
Like Steve, I've only used SterlingTek batteries for my Canon DSLRs for years now. They're a fraction of the price of the OEM battery, and more powerful, to boot!