Do cameras like the Canon 300D use any battery power when auto powering off?

DwainDibley · Jul 8, 2007

Just wondering, as I frequently when out and about turn the camera on then let it auto power off after a minute so that if I see a photo opportunity all I need to do is tap the shutter button for the camera to power up again.

Obviously it will consume a bit of power before it shuts itself off, but do dSLRs consume any power when in this 'standby' mode when they auto power off?

Hope you understand what I mean! :greenpbl:

jstuedle · Jul 8, 2007

I see you have no responses yet. I can't speak for Canons, but Nikon's use very little power when in stand-by mode. My D1X's, known for there habit of eating batteries will run for some time in standby. I have left a camera on and in it's case for almost 2 weeks and it still would shoot. I am sure your Canon is much the same.

WDodd · Jul 8, 2007

jstuedle said:
I see you have no responses yet. I can't speak for Canons, but Nikon's use very little power when in stand-by mode. My D1X's, known for there habit of eating batteries will run for some time in standby. I have left a camera on and in it's case for almost 2 weeks and it still would shoot. I am sure your Canon is much the same.

Thats correct. Theres a lot of times I forget to turn my XT off and it still shoots when I go back to use it. I've been getting better at remembering to turn it off when I'm not using it.

DwainDibley · Jul 8, 2007

Sounds good, I guess then that the camera doesn't consume any power, or at least barely any power when in the 'standby' mode. It's probably just laziness on my part, but when out and about with my camera I like to leave it on and let it go into standby mode so it's easier to get it powered on - though not sure if it's much quicker or not!

Garbz · Jul 8, 2007

It depends entirely on what gets turned off. The technicals behind the Nikon D200 is that the back LCD and the exposure metre gets turned off (a small CCD on the top of the penta prism). I can only assume the microcontroller would go into a reduced power state if not all the way down to a wake on interrupt.

I would imagine you'd get 300 hours out of it in standby from normal batteries, so probably more from the LI batteries DSLRs use.

Jon, The Elder · Jul 10, 2007

Dwain..... I walk around all day (10 hour shoots) with the camera set for 2 minute turn off. I primarily use a 70-200f2,8 so there is all kinds of battery drain. I have NEVER run out of power. It is a waste of time turning your camera on and off all the time. That is what the feature is all about. Remember we are talking Millivolts here.

PatriK-b · Jul 10, 2007

Jon said:
Dwain..... I walk around all day (10 hour shoots) with the camera set for 2 minute turn off. I primarily use a 70-200f2,8 so there is all kinds of battery drain. I have NEVER run out of power. It is a waste of time turning your camera on and off all the time. That is what the feature is all about. Remember we are talking Millivolts here.

We are more probably talking about microamps here

So, yes, they do consume, they have, at least to be able to wake up

A full loaded battery will last for months in this condition, consider that batteries are about 1000maH and we are talking about ua. Some cameras, like my 30D and probably others, are never totally off. When you change the CF, even in off mode (not standby), the card is read as soon as inserted, red led is flashing.