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.

1 hour ago, brightnight said:

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.

So is this only when you started using it in very cold water or is it was working for a while in the very cold water but suddenly started dying? This may indicate a new battery could do better? Other than that you could try keeping the housing in a cooler with a hot water bottle until you hop in the river perhaps?

FYI, I typically see a jump in the remaining battery power of one bar (on the unit's display) about an hour or so after ending a shoot (when I am home) and the housing is still cold to the touch even during the summer. This goes for both Li and Ni type batteries - cameras and strobes.

12 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

So is this only when you started using it in very cold water or is it was working for a while in the very cold water but suddenly started dying? This may indicate a new battery could do better? Other than that you could try keeping the housing in a cooler with a hot water bottle until you hop in the river perhaps?

It only started happening in very cold water. In one week I went from shooting in 46F water (7.7C) to 38F (3.3C) water and that's where I noticed the big difference. I have 4 Canon batteries (not knock offs) that I rotate through and they all started dropping out after 600-700 shots in the colder water. Can't say I blame the batteries, a chemsitry that works in very cold temps is probably very different than hot environments.

A new battery would almost certainly have more capacity although my batteries are only a year old and have been cycled ~40 times each so some wear but not that beat up. Typically once I'm in the water I'm in for 4-6 hours which means the camera gets cold and stays cold and I often the reason I get out is I have to change a battery which happens more in the colder water. I'm sure the battery self warms a little when it's being used but not nearly enough for the temperatures I'm seeing. Obviously anytime I have to open up my housing, especially in the middle of the woods in a drysuit only increases the risk that my housing might flood, which I would like to minimize :)

19 hours ago, brightnight said:

It only started happening in very cold water. In one week I went from shooting in 46F water (7.7C) to 38F (3.3C) water and that's where I noticed the big difference. I have 4 Canon batteries (not knock offs) that I rotate through and they all started dropping out after 600-700 shots in the colder water. Can't say I blame the batteries, a chemsitry that works in very cold temps is probably very different than hot environments.

A new battery would almost certainly have more capacity although my batteries are only a year old and have been cycled ~40 times each so some wear but not that beat up. Typically once I'm in the water I'm in for 4-6 hours which means the camera gets cold and stays cold and I often the reason I get out is I have to change a battery which happens more in the colder water. I'm sure the battery self warms a little when it's being used but not nearly enough for the temperatures I'm seeing. Obviously anytime I have to open up my housing, especially in the middle of the woods in a drysuit only increases the risk that my housing might flood, which I would like to minimize :)

It seems like you might be reaching the natural limit for your batteries if this is the case, potentially it's not so much the exposures taken but the time the camera is on, presumably it doesn't go off to sleep at any point in the 4-6 hours. I also see Canon has a new battery out the LP-E6P, this video claims greater run time for a cinema camera using it:

Totally Awesome - Canon - What Have You Done - LP-E6P vs...

I just watched a great video on youtube by Josh Sattin.  In it he compares video runtime performance between the new LP-E6P and the now older LP-E6NH.  Since I shoot in 4K 24p most often, this was hug

Might be worthwhile getting one of these to try it out and see if you get an improvement?