Battery life and intervalometer - 50D

[arthurdent]

Apologies if I have missed a whole load of material on this topic - some of the threads I found were old and inconclusive, also I am new to this! I hope Battery Life isn't a taboo question.

I am using ML v2.3 on a 50d and even following all the rules I am finding unwanted battery drain for stills/standby e.g. I left the camera for a week on a fresh charge, with it in the OFF position on the selector switch, and I took it out and found it only had 1 bar left. Only 3 shots taken on that charge - and no more than 10 seconds of live view, although the card in the camera does NOT yet have ML on it (its a new card, will do soon :-) ). Before ML I have to say I never even bothered with the off switch and mostly left the camera to auto sleep -- and never saw the battery drain noticeably as a result of that.

I don't think this was the premature card removal issue because I always wait for the extra red blink - and perhaps if it was, my battery would have been even more drained (this was after all a week!) ? I was wondering if this is all about the intervalometer features, and whether this can be turned off for example if the only thing i normally use ML for is video. Perhaps such a feature toggle has already been done in a nightly build and I need to get closer to head, as it were since 2.3 looks quite old these days ?

Perhaps I just need ML on all cards.

[ Do the intervalometer features being enabled correspond to the little IR remote symbol on the display by the way ? don't think I saw that before the ML install ]

[dmilligan]

If the camera is off, it is off. ML does not and cannot do anything while the camera is off. Secondly, if there is no ML on the card, there is absolutely no way can cause anything, as ML only exists on the card and has no permanent affect on the camera with the exception of the bootflag. The only thing that could potentially happen is if ML crashed and you didn't take the battery out. This could cause a fairly quick battery drain. Since you said that after a week the camera still had some battery left I suspect this is not it and it's the battery itself. Batteries age and as they get old they are able to hold less charge and they aren't able to hold it for as long (even when not in use batteries drain). Try this: fully charge the battery. Don't even put it in the camera at all for a week, I suspect it will be significantly drained after this.

[arthurdent]

thanks - i wasn't convinced off was truly off - also suspicious of the ir/remote symbol - battery is a brand new duracell - purchased in response to the sudden need for batteries where before it never was an issue

could be some memory effect with the new battery so it's under observation; i'll give it a couple of weeks, swap batteries around, then revert to original firmware - if battery life returns to normal I'll call it quits and movies will come in a few years time when a new camera body can be justified