MIII Battery Issue / Camera Turning Off Issue

[Marshall Levy]

With a response by Canon stating that I need to return my MIII after a whopping one week of ownership (yeah right), has anyone experienced any battery level issues with the MIII? THIS IS NOTICEABLE WHEN USING THE CAMERA FOR VIDEO.

Specifically, when Canon-branded batteries get between 36%-42% of remaining power via the MENU, the camera turns off as if the battery has no power left. However, if I take these batteries and put them in another camera, they average 1-2 remaining bars. They will not show power in the MIII until after they are re-charged, and even if they are placed on the charger for just a few seconds, they'll then blink with no power on the MIII yet still work fine in another camera (60D, MII). To make this even more bizarre, if a battery in the MIII states that it has, say, 65% left, but I put that battery in a 60D and it happens to read 63%, putting the battery back in the MIII will then read 63%; it will always default to the lower rating, regardless, ultimately implying that the MIII is reading the batteries incorrectly.

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Quite simple to test this....charge a battery, go to the menu > battery level and note the % charge. Then, record video and let it continue until it stops at the 29xx mark. Then, note the battery level. Continue recording and repeat until the battery fails and the camera turns off. Note the battery % each time the camera stops recording. If you have another camera that accepts the LPE6 batteries, when it fails in the MIII, see if another camera can pull a charge and note the battery level in that camera.

[Robert Turchick]

No issues here. I ran a six hour continuous shoot where the only time the mkIII wasn't recording was to swap cards or change batteries. I let the battery warning light come on each time. I used 2-1/2 batteries for the whole shoot.
Sounds like you may have an isolated problem.

[Wayne Avanson]

Just had mine a week and finally got round to playing with it.
Decided to test the 29 minute video thing just for the fun of seeing it go through the 12 minute barrier and it quits after a few minutes. Sort of lock up. just put in a brand new SanDisk 90MBs Extreme Pro card. So I thought it was the card at first. Am trying it now with fresh battery and tried and tested 60Mbs Sandisk…

Hope it doesn't have to go back. Will keep you posted.

Did you send yours back Marshall?

[Wayne Avanson]

Yep Battery problems. Will be taking it back this weekend.

[Wayne Avanson]

Replaced camera this morning at the shop. Just doing tests now, but already I can tell it's not as hot as the other one. So if all goes well I'll not post again on this thread.