What is typical life span of DSLR Lithium battery?

9 years 10 months ago #380749 by Ben Howen
I'm just curious on how long these batteries are good for? 

Canon T3i, 18-55mm IS, 50mm, 55-250mm
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9 years 10 months ago #380792 by Justin
Depends on the usage, but 3 to 4 years I would guess.

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9 years 10 months ago #380902 by garyrhook
Wikipedia has a nice write up on Lithium-Ion batteries. Note that the DSLR part of this question is irrelevant.

Manufacturers' information implies that the life of a battery that is not abused depends upon the number of charge cycles it undergoes, specifying typical battery capacity in terms of number of cycles (e.g., capacity dropping linearly to 80% over 500 cycles), with no mention of age of the battery. Research by Professor Jeff Dahn of Dalhousie University suggests this common industry practice of merely counting cycles, ignoring the effect of age, is a poor predictor real-world battery life. In particular, a major contributor to the degradation of Li-Ions cell is the length of time they spend sitting at full charge, and with continuous cycle testing the cells are not left sitting with a full state of charge for any significant length of time. Battery performance is rarely specified over more than 500 cycles. This means that batteries of mobile phones, or other hand-held devices in daily use, are not expected to last longer than three years. But it is also quite possible to obtain lithium-ion batteries based on carbon anodes with more than 10.000 cycles.


In other words, as is so often the case, "it depends."  I like the 3-year timeframe, based on what I've seen with my mobile phones, however. My camera batteries don't get charged that often; I use them till they're fairly empty before switching. I'm figuring years of use.


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9 years 10 months ago #381003 by Don Fischer
I don't shoot near as much as folks on here. But I got my first digital about 2000-2002. When I got it I also got a spare battery. I don't use it all that much the past couple years, since I got my D5000 but, I;m still using the original battery that came with it and the same spare battery. Like gary, I also run the battery down before charging. I don't know if it's still true or not but, battery's used to have memory. That is if you didn't run it down and charged it, you'd shorten the battery considerably. Might not be true anymore but, doesn't hurt to run them down. I always carry the spare battery with me when I'm out with a camera.


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9 years 10 months ago #381065 by Ottis
:agree:   good post


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9 years 10 months ago #381113 by Uplander
I've never had one go bad and some of mine are 4 years old


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9 years 10 months ago #381231 by Jeffrey Russo

Uplander wrote: I've never had one go bad and some of mine are 4 years old




You should knock on wood to play it safe!  


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9 years 10 months ago #381474 by Raymond II
:agree:  didn't have one quit on me before  


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9 years 10 months ago #381989 by Joves
Their life span is till they die. I still have the battery that came with my D300 in 2008, and it is still going strong. But you also have to consider that I bought two additional batteries as backups at the same time. 


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