Has IS affected battery life?

[Katy Penland]

Even though I'm still a film-consuming dinosaur with my EOS-1N system, I wanted to know if any of you shooting digital (or film) has noticed whether your IS lenses have decreased the camera's battery life. Seems since using the 100-300mm Canon IS lens, I'm going through batteries at an insane rate. And they also seem to deteriorate with no warning (which is a separate issue as this is, I'm sure, a camera problem, not a lens problem). Used to be able to get 20-30 rolls of 36-exp. film per battery; now I'm lucky if it's 5.

[hollis_f]

Even though I'm still a film-consuming dinosaur with my EOS-1N system, I wanted to know if any of you shooting digital (or film) has noticed whether your IS lenses have decreased the camera's battery life. Seems since using the 100-300mm Canon IS lens, I'm going through batteries at an insane rate. And they also seem to deteriorate with no warning (which is a separate issue as this is, I'm sure, a camera problem, not a lens problem). Used to be able to get 20-30 rolls of 36-exp. film per battery; now I'm lucky if it's 5.

Canon reckon that the increase battery consumption shouldn't be more than around 10%. My experience is that it makes even less difference than this. But that assumes you're only using the IS for a couple of seconds per shot, maximum. If you spend a lot of time with your autofocus (and, hence, IS) active then it'll suck the life from the batteries much faster.

With my IS lenses I can hear when the gyros start up. Have a listen to yours - there may be a fault (with lens or camera) that means it's active all the time.

[Tannin]

I typically get ~1000 shots to the battery on my 20D, or (typically) a full day plus another half day worth of use per charge. Around 80% of my shots are taken with IS on. In short, I can't see how it would be using much. (Which is in itself an interesting matter. I'd have thought that a mechanical action like IS would use quite a lot of power. But it doesn't seem to. Interesting.)

[Keith Reeder]

Katy,

I initially thought that my IS (OS really - Sigma lens on Nikon Digital body) was going to put me in the Poor House because of how quickly it finished off the battery in the camera first time out.

In fact, it turned out to be because the battery was a copy of the authentic Nikon battery.

Using the real thing, I can easily get a couple of days or more hard use (IS on 100% of the time) out of the battery.

The battery in the D70 is famous for its life between charges though, and the IS does still finish it off more quickly.

Does your camera use a bespoke battery, or generic "over the counter" models?

[Katy Penland]

Thanks, guys, for the responses. To answer a few specific questions:

Hollis - I'll pay more attention to how much I keep the shutter half-depressed for each shot, which engages the AF and IS. Neither is active all the time, so you may be right that I'm doing more "dithering" than I probably should. I have noticed, though, that after a roll or so of film, the IS takes a lot longer to disengage, actually longer than it takes to stabilize.

Keith -- I don't have a battery pack for this camera, just use a regular 6 volt lithium Duracell Photo battery (non-rechargable). Have tried other brands to see if they'd be better, and they're actually not as good. I'm not sure Canon makes a battery pack for this body but I'll look into it.

It's just been very frustrating, and on a couple of trips, heart-breaking when, without warning, the battery juice is so low that it literally freezes the IS and shutter to where I have to turn the camera off and back on again to release both, change battery, and hope what I wanted to shoot is still there. :-C As the IS lens is the only thing different from what I was shooting before, I naturally concluded it was to blame. But I'll pay more attention to how I'm shooting, see if that makes a difference.

Thanks again, all of you! ;)

[bbgobie]

I find that IS on an OLD Canon IS the 75-300 to be exact drained my batteries quite significantly. I suppose it's all in how you use it. If you half depress the shutter for a min while waiting for a shot to happen, its gonna drain.

[IanF]

I'm using the 20D with Canon 100-400mm IS. Even using IS full time I have yet to drain a battery. I'll go three days use (700-800 shots) before bothering to recharge it.