5D3 Battery Life - Long Exposure Photography

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BraindG

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Barry
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Hi all,

Does anyone know roughly how much life i would get out of the 5D3 Battery?

I do long exposure photos and on my 500D i was able to get 3 hours out of the battery, most exposures would be around the 4~ Minute mark.

Thanks
Barry
 
My 5DII was good for about 4 hours of continuous 30s exposures.
My impression so far is that the 5DIII is similar but I've not yet had the opportunity to flatten a battery in a single set of shots.
 
If you get less than the life you need it might be worth investing in a 3rd party grip and an extra battery. I got a Vertex grip for my 5D3 for about £55 and a 3rd party battery for around £7, both off ebay, and I've had no problems with them at all.

I shot around 600 photos with the camera on for 6 hours straight with the grip on and it only went down 1 notch. In all I took over 1500 photos with AF and IS on all the time from 1 set of batteries.
 
Thanks Stuart, I considered the grip - the ones I looked at seemed to allow you to place two batteries in it, rather than it being lets say self rechargeable.

I then though, if that's the case I may aswell just buy a second battery, rather than adding more weight to the camera.

What's your thoughts on the extra weight it brings versus just carrying another battery that you can swap out.
 
The weight you soon get used to and if you're shooting with a heavy lens like the Canon 70-200 MkII or the Sigma 150-500 OS the grip gives me a better balance anyway. With 2 batteries in the grip it'll either drain both at a slower rate or drain one first then automatically change to the other without having to stop, depends on which grip you get as to which way they work, but either way you get twice the time without having to swap. I can shoot all day without having to change batteries and with the 5D3 having 2 card slots I can take well over 1000 raw shots or a few thousand jpegs without having to miss a shot.
 
Cool, that's food for thought.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I'll weigh up the options and take a decision.

Barry
 
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