Canon S100 battery life?

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What's with the "wasabi" batteries?

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Wasabi batteries in theory have capacity of 1400 mAh instead of the standard canon 1120 mAh
I doubt that they actually last longer but I would love to see a test
Generally what is very cheap is not very good and on batteries this tends to be even more true
I have a Canon NB-5L and an energizer compatible the canon gives me over 450 full flash shots I am going to put the energizer and give it a go
 
For the most part, the Wasabi batteries are Japanses cells, and not Chinese. BIG difference and they DO last longer, and are fairly inexpensive. You can find at bluenook dot com I've bought a variety of different ones for a variety of different cameras, and have had nothing but great luck. I use the heck out of them, especially for the S90.

With that said, someone "questioned" earlier in the thread, and I will ask as well, are you really taking that many pictures on one dive ?? Think quality, not quantity :)
 
How have you tested that or your talking about impressions?

If you put the camera in self shoot with full flash in sequence of 10 and keep going the canon battery lasts longer obviously you need to compare batteries at the same point of their life

Most people that have tested wasabi without flash say that they fall short at least 10% a canon battery that on paper has smaller capacity

I bet with flash there is a gap of at least 25%


For the most part, the Wasabi batteries are Japanses cells, and not Chinese. BIG difference and they DO last longer, and are fairly inexpensive. You can find at bluenook dot com I've bought a variety of different ones for a variety of different cameras, and have had nothing but great luck. I use the heck out of them, especially for the S90.

With that said, someone "questioned" earlier in the thread, and I will ask as well, are you really taking that many pictures on one dive ?? Think quality, not quantity :)
 
How have you tested that or your talking about impressions?

If you put the camera in self shoot with full flash in sequence of 10 and keep going the canon battery lasts longer obviously you need to compare batteries at the same point of their life

Most people that have tested wasabi without flash say that they fall short at least 10% a canon battery that on paper has smaller capacity

I bet with flash there is a gap of at least 25%

Have I "bench tested" the Wasabi's ? No. Can I provide technical details & measurements ? No. I'm all about real deal, everyday USAGE. (See recent Honda class action lawsuit about their "Hybrid mileage specifications") What I CAN tell you is I consistently get 2 dives from the Canon battery, and consistently get 3 + from the Wasabi. Flash is generally on 100 % of the time. I dive every weekend, and travel quite a bit, as well. The Wasabi is ALWAYS the first battery of the day, to go into the camera. I also have Wasabi's for 3 different DSLR's on land, same results. You mention "most people that have tested Wasabi" ; who and where are these people ? I don't recall ever seeing/hearing anything bad about Wasabi JAPANESE cells. And just to clarify, I'm not saying that they are the best battery out there, period. I'm simply stating my results with them, and my preference.
 
Wasabi batteries in theory have capacity of 1400 mAh instead of the standard canon 1120 mAh
I doubt that they actually last longer but I would love to see a test
Generally what is very cheap is not very good and on batteries this tends to be even more true
I have a Canon NB-5L and an energizer compatible the canon gives me over 450 full flash shots I am going to put the energizer and give it a go

In my real world neither the Wasabi (1300mA) nor the Canon NB-6L (1000mA) will get me through a third dive with my S95 and I tend to take 30 or so strobe shots on each dive. So considering the significant price difference Wasabi is a winner. BTW there is no way I could see either battery lasting a couple of hundred shots even if I wanted to take that many on a dive. Thanks for the graph on battery discharge Interceptor 121.
 
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I have an S95, and routinely do 90 min+ dives in cold water. Every picture uses the flash to trigger my strobe. I was finding that I would run low on power at the end of each dive, but have since adjusted the camera settings to optimize the battery life.

I think it's pretty safe to say that most people know that the screen draws considerably on the battery, therefore, many people shut the camera off between shots. Operating the servos that move the lens and flash use a relatively large amount of power too though.

I have my camera set to turn the display off (saving power) if nothing is pressed after a short time (can't recall exactly how long at the moment; 1 min or less for sure.) I have also turned the 'Auto-Off' feature off.

With this set-up, the camera doesn't close the lens and flash, wasting power, if I haven't taken and pics in a while, but also doesn't waste power displaying everything - Plus the time and power savings of not having the camera 'boot-up' again. Since the camera is in it's housing, i'm not worried about dust or anything getting on the lens, so I can't see any problems with this method.

From my experience, the power draw while in 'sleep' but not 'shutdown' seems quite minimal. I always get through my typical dives on a single battery, taking many shots. If I forget to swap the battery, I do get a fair way into the second dive before any warnings show up. (Total usage time about 2 1/4 Hrs or more).

YMMV.

Hope this helps.
 
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Sunkmail has got good points there. The LCD draws power and so does the lens retract at power off
there are plenty of misconception around Li-Ion batteries that are also worth expanding on
first you can only compare batteries at similar age in terms of charging cycles example you have a battery you bought and you fully discharged it 200 times and compare it with a brand new battery the latter will tend to win in the first comparisons however if poorer quality the gap will close quite soon
another point is that a battery lasts for a certain number of cycle the canon NB5L has 300 cycles once you approach that point the camera will give you the battery depleted quite son time to put it in the bin
for what concerns the argument of nautilus I also agree that the differential in quality is minimal but the difference is cost if higher there is a valid point buying a compatible battery assuming of course the same lifetime of the battery
example a battery that costs half but lasts half in terms of total charge cycle in general is not a winner!
 
I have no problem getting two dives from my S90 - I turn off the camera until I have suitable subject matter and I have the camera flash turned down to 1/3 power, just to trigger the strobes.

On vacation I have two batteries, charging one will the other is in use. I also swap out the memory cards after each dive day, that way I keep any pictures in case I have a camera flood.

Have sets of batteries for each of my strobes as well.....

M
 
Thanks for all of the responses. I just wish canon would still make cameras that used AA batteries. I can get 4 to 6 dives with my A620! Why not use that body style but include the features of the s100? I think a lot of people would value battery life over a slightly smaller size, but maybe I'm in the minority.
 

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