Hacking a Canon Battery Grip

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I shoot with this type of battery grip. It's great to be able to shoot all day and not worry about the batteries dying. However, when it's dead, it's dead. This hack is useful for people who don't pay attention to how much 'juice' they have left. When the battery dies, you can just switch them and keep shooting. I know you could ditch the grip and keep an extra battery in your pocket, but the battery grip makes holding the camera much easier.

There is just one problem with that setup: Canon decided to design the battery grip in such a way that it drains bower from both batteries at a time while you're shooting. On the one hand this means that you can take pictures for a longer period of time but on the other hands you're still bummed when you run out of battery juice and have to dig through your backpack (you didn't leave it at home or in the car, did you?) to load a fully charged battery.

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Posted by: Pokho on September 24, 2008 at 9:14 AM

Nice, I'd also like to see a hack on a Canon WiFi grip. So it might be possible to send pictures straight to flickr(or whatever) while shooting.. must be possible.. That would be the bomb for photojournalism I guess


Posted by: mlange.myopenid.com on September 25, 2008 at 2:16 PM

Batteries

While the post holds merit, the camera drains the outermost battery first (The slot that's taped up in the photo), so that one will have no charge, while the other one is full.

The camera does, however, show you this on the battery display. If both batteries are charged, you see a full "[--]>" Battery symbol. When the first battery runs out, it displays a half-battery "[ -]>".

So.. When you see it below a full charge, change out the first battery :)


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