As mentioned in my last post, I came to the conclusion that the supplied battery that came with my 1DX MkII is not up to scratch and mainly because it doesn’t seem to hold it’s charge. Because these cameras are designed for professional use, they have inbuilt to the menu a pretty reasonable battery condition monitor and despite recalibrating the battery a few times, it was obvious that this needed replacing.
Reading the appropriate section in the user manual detailed all the symptoms to look out for and what they mean – yep this was on it’s last legs. These batteries are rated at 1,000 to 1,200 shots on a full charge dependent on temperature, my one was showing 65% charge left from a full charge after only 68 pictures taken !
How Does This Happen ?
In simple terms and likely, a professional photographer or studio trading in a camera and upgrading to the next model which happens to use the same battery, is likely to put their oldest battery in to the camera body being traded in. In this case the Canon LP-E19 battery is also used in the subsequent 1DX MkIII and the Canon R3 camera so a working photographer or studio upgrading to later models of the same brand will have several additional batteries to chose from to include in the trade in. Call it human nature…
Met With Great Service
It is a great advantage of dealing with MPB down in Brighton that when I’ve needed it on a couple of occasions over the past years on kit I’ve purchased from them, they have delivered excellent customer service. I sent them an email one evening and they were back in touch with me by 09:20 the next morning
They didn’t have any spares of this battery in stock but offered to either give me a partial refund of £150 towards a new battery or, a total refund and a full return of the camera if I was really unhappy, a definite NO to the latter so we agreed on the £150 which I considered generous as I would end up with a brand new battery as opposed to a second hand one.
This same battery pack as I mentioned above is used in the later 1DX MkIII and also the current R3 body, they cost between £170 – £190 each and can be difficult to source at the present time because there are still post Covid supply issues. However I got lucky and picked up a new one on Amazon Marketplace for £152.26 which I considered a bit of a result so well done as ever to MPB.
The Outcome
My refund appeared on the credit card I use for online purchases within 48 hours and my brand new battery arrived a couple of days later so no complaints there. I wasn’t panicked by any of this, I already had a spare battery having bought a third party LP-E4N which works in the 1DX MkII shortly after my camera turned up so I could keep using the camera until this was sorted out.
However and whilst I have no immediate plans to trade this 1DX MkII anytime soon, if I do in the future, having a genuine OEM (Canon) battery is a must in order to get the best price for your gear.
