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View Full Version : Big DV Camera Batteries Mean Less Event Stress: The Canon BP-945 Battery


Jason Dunn
04-28-2004, 06:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=jasondunn-20&path=tg/detail/-/B00007E7JY/qid%3D1083167358/sr%3D8-1' target='_blank'>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=jasondunn-20&path=tg/detail/-/B00007E7JY/qid%3D1083167358/sr%3D8-1</a><br /><br /></div>I don't use my Canon GL2 a great deal - perhaps a couple of times a month - but when I do it's usually as the <i>"unpaid event videographer because we couldn't afford a real pro"</i>. :lol: So this usually means that I'm there with the goal of archiving the event, and that means <i>all</i> of the event, not just a casual "Oh, I think I'll capture this part." I have two standard batteries for my GL2, each battery lasting about 60 minutes or so. Given that in standard recording mode you can fit 60 minutes of footage on a MiniDV tape, you'd think this would work out just fine. What I've found in using my GL2 over the past year is that you can never have enough battery power, and it's less stressful to change a tape during a brief break than to change a tape <i>and</i> a battery.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/k20aiii.gif" /> So a few months ago I decided that I wanted to get as much battery power as possible for my GL2 - which meant getting one of the <a href="http://www.canondv.com/gl2/a_batteries.html">massive BP-945</a> batteries. I purchased it brand new off eBay, and got a great deal. This battery is <b>BIG</b> - make no mistake. It adds a fair amount of weight to the camera. Is it worth it? Absolutely.<br /><br />Much to my delight, it performed amazingly well! I shot 100 minutes of footage, and I only used up about 20% of the battery. This is even better than the Canon estimate of 200 minutes total battery life. It was mostly wide-angle stage shots with little to no zooming and no LCD screen, which means less power being used. When I needed to change tapes, it was a quick six-second process, and not having to worry about the battery was a big relief.<br /><br />There's one other additional benefit of having this big 4500 mAh battery that I hadn't considered until now - after this 100 minutes of shooting, I still had enough battery life left to transfer the entire footage over Firewire, meaning it saved me having to set up the external power supply. The less cables the better!<br /><br />If you're interested in picking up a BP-945 for your Canon MiniDV camera, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=jasondunn-20&path=tg/detail/-/B00007E7JY/qid%3D1083167358/sr%3D8-1">Amazon.com has them for $119.99</a>. [Affiliate]

Doug Johnson
04-28-2004, 06:26 PM
Yikes.... I didn't know the GL2 had poor battery life.

My VX2000 goes about 5-6 hours on a charge on a significantly smaller battery. At times I have gone a whole 8-hour day with the camera on the whole time without changing batteries til the very end.

Jason Dunn
04-28-2004, 07:40 PM
My VX2000 goes about 5-6 hours on a charge on a significantly smaller battery. At times I have gone a whole 8-hour day with the camera on the whole time without changing batteries til the very end.

Holy crap! 8O That's insane battery life...5-6 hours of taping on a single charge? I've never heard of battery life like that before...wow. Impressive!

mrkablooey
04-29-2004, 12:23 AM
That battery would probably tear the whole backside off my ZR10. 8O

Suhit Gupta
04-29-2004, 04:01 AM
How long does it take to charge back to full capacity though? I remember buying an extended battery for a Canon XL1 (long time ago) and it took almost 5 hours to charge up after it had been almost completely drained. This IMO was a bit too long, don't you think?

Suhit

Doug Johnson
04-29-2004, 05:22 PM
Holy crap! 8O That's insane battery life...5-6 hours of taping on a single charge? I've never heard of battery life like that before...wow. Impressive!

That isn't even the biggest battery Sony makes. They have one (probably physically the same size as the one you're talking about here) that is rated for 9 hours on this camera. (The same battery can last 12 or longer on smaller single chip cameras, but lets compare apples to apples...)