S'now Problem??

Today I encountered a problem that last occurred at the very cold KWVR gala in 2008.

Despite removing and cuddling the batteries from my Canon EOS at Seven Arches at regular intervals, just as the K4 came into view in the sunset the bxxxxxd thing shut down with no power output.

Thank God, that, as a dinosaur, I still shoot transparency and therefore I had a fall back - albeit still battery powered - to fall back on.

Is this a particularly Canon problem?

My batteries were fully charged last night, and regularly stashed in my pockets in an ettempt to keep them warm after the KWVR experience - all to no avail when the chips were down.

 

Batteries in cold weather are always a nightmare, either they were not fully charged (even if you thought they were) so are suffering with a memory effect very likely if they are older Nimh, newer Lithium shouldnt have this problem,or they wont hold there charge anymore so need replacing. Problem with rechargeables is they just suddenly stop rather than slowly lose charge like Alkaline, so as soon as you see a bar disapear on the level indicator put a fresh set in. Not sure how much you no about batteries so hope this makes some sense.

 

Once they let you down (assuming you had them a while) it's time to replace. Just like my car battery last week, had to call the AA to get started, then went straight to the garage for a new battery - once they are on the way out its pointless relying on them

 

I didn't have any problems using my Canon in the snow the other day so I don't think its a specific canon problem

 

Why don't all cameras have a battery meter in the display? How difficult can that be - every phone has one!

 

I think all of them do, don't they. All the ones my family have owned have had a battery indicator.

 

Battery meters are like petrol gauges on cars, my solid state Marrantz recorder has no moving parts yet as soon as one bar on the meter dissapears, you blink and the batteries are flat, where as my Nikon will go on for ever.

 

My Fuji S8100 cerainly doesn't, just a red one a few secs before it dies. But then it runs on AA's so I keep a spare set handy.

 

I was at my specialist photo shop today and Ken was quite clear on the point.

Carry two sets and always have one "next to the skin" in cold weather as in his experience they are very temperature sensitive - in typical UK weather the batteries hang on for ever - and mine do, but below freezing they give up just like that.

I had been resuscitating the one battery all day and made the mistake of leaving it twenty minutes at about minus five result - zero action - ten minutes in the Jeep and it was back to a full two bars - no use at all in the seconds when you want it!