Does anyone have any special tips or tricks for dealing with camera batteries in cold water? I was in 37-40F water and noticed the battery life of my Canon 5dMIV decreased dramatically. Normally I can shoot 1200-1400 shots on a single battery in 50F water and I was only getting maybe 600-600 in the cold water. Since my nauticam housing is aluminum and the air inside is pulled to a vaccuum, any heat will be exchange quickly from the housing to the water and so something like hothands is unlikely to work.

So far I've come up with:

-Keep battery warm and camera housing out of water for as long a possible before shooting, specially if air temps are warmer than water temps

-For the 5D Canon makes a newer LP-E6NH which has a bit more capacity compared to the standard LP-E6. Assuming temp performace is therefore also slightly better but haven't confirmed

Keep the camera out of the cold as long as possible.

Add a USB bulkhead to charge between dives.

Your best bet is probably the newer battery, it could be you've lost a bit of capacity of your existing battery as well if it's a few years old. The USB bulkhead only helps if the camera allows battery charging in the camera, the 5D MkIV does have this option it seems?

This is why I have mostly used gripped bodies here in Alaska: Nikon one-digit and Canon 1d models. Even with them I have had sudden death with the batteries (after a lot of shots).

2 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

Your best bet is probably the newer battery, it could be you've lost a bit of capacity of your existing battery as well if it's a few years old. The USB bulkhead only helps if the camera allows battery charging in the camera, the 5D MkIV does have this option it seems?

I don't believe the 5DmIV has the ability to charge when the battery is in the camera. That's a good idea but I also have all of my bulkheads in use. One for a vacuum port and one for an HDMI connector for a monitor. If I end up switching to mirrorless and have a housing with more bulkheads I will definetly try that.

I have started seeing the battery suddely die in cold temps instead of the normaly battery level warnings. One of the joys of cold water I guess! Gripped bodies is a good idea too, definitely not something I thought to consider when buying a camera or housing.