Art99 0 Posted March 8, 2007 The original Canon battery on my SD 500 finally gave up. I replaced it with an unbranded battery with Canon specs AND at the same time switched from a 512K flash memory to a 1G memory. I don't seem to be getting as much underwater time/number of pix with this new combo. Is it the unbranded battery?? How can I tell if it works as well as the Canon without buying one of each? OR is it possible that the bigger flash memory uses more power than the previously smaller one?? Help-- my next dive trip is early April and I'd like to resolve this before then. Art99 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mrmishkin 0 Posted March 16, 2007 Hi From my personal experience I'd say that the memory card upgrade is not affecting the battery. If you switched to a micro-drive then we would expect decreased battery life. My guess is the new battery is not of the same quality as the original canon one. I have heard reports in cell phones that non-oem batteries have shorter shelf lives and capacity is either lower than the original or reduces after many charge discharge cycles. Hope this helps. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bmyates 3 Posted March 17, 2007 If your new CF card is a Microdrive, that could be a factor, as Microdrives use more power (due to the actual spinning disk inside). As for the non-OEM battery, I have several of them, and haven't noticed a difference vs. OEM, but I suppose there's less consistency among off-brands than OEM, so that doesn't really surprise me, either. It's never a bad idea to have more than one battery, and you might want to buy an OEM (or at least a different off-brand than the one you have) as that extra. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites