Canon: How To Charge The Battery
The Canon LP-E6 batteries for the Canon 5DMk2, the 60D and the 7D are amazing! The LP-E6 seems to be improving with age. Saturday, the battery was down to 16%. Time to change it. I did 2168 photos and the battery was down to 16%. Could it have lasted to 2500 photos? Possible. I couldn't take a photo of the LCD with the number of shots because it was the camera with the lens that had the fairly close focus. The other camera had a close focus of almost 4 meters or 12 feet.
Canon - LP-E6 Battery Info after 1586 photos
I've even heard of people getting 3000 photos per battery charge, mostly on fixed lenses without the image stabilization.
I remember the “good old days” when a battery lasted around 300 photos. I had to buy 4 batteries to last me for a whole busy day. Then 4 years ago, I graduated to a 500+ photos per charge. I could live with only 2 batteries per camera. So how do I make the battery last so long when Canon itself rates the LP-E6 battery at “only” 1000 photos per charge?
- I “properly” condition the batteries. My steps are at: Prepare a New Battery
- The Canon battery charger has a flashing light, orange when charging and green when it's charged. Actually when the green light is on, it's not fully charged. For me, when I place the battery in the camera, it shows only 89%.
There's a huge gap between 89% and 100%. By waiting another couple of hours with the green light on, it keeps on charging. Now I get 98% to 99%.
- It's not possible to “overcharge” the Canon LP-E6 battery in the Canon charger. The charger has electronics monitoring of the voltage and the heat to determine when the battery is fully charged.
- More detailed info on batteries in general, is available at: Battery University