On to the Battery department.....
 

First things first.....Gotta get some long running batteries. Having the peace of mind to know that you can leave your chargr at home and leave your camera on all day (not that i ever done that) is just a good feeling. So off to the (virtual) battery store I go...

http://www.power101.com/item.htm?id=60010

I have bought 6 batteries for my Z1U from these guys (4 for me and 2 for a friend overseas). They all worked exellent, and they each lasted for DAYS it seemed. I never needed more then 2 batteries per day. SO I can vouch for them as a company. I sent them an email in February asking them to be a sponsor for DVINFO, I'll ask them again upon purchasing 4 of these batteries for the XL-H1 as well.

Nice price huh? *smile*

- ShannonRawls.com

Don't overlook the new Canon series of graphite-technology batteries. One of them came with your XL H1. It's the BP-950G and it will give you a recording time of 4 hrs. 55 min. all by itself. Not bad for the stock included battery. There's also the optional BP-970G which has 6 hrs. 45 min. recording time. The CH-910 dual battery holder with a pair of 970's gives you quite a bit more than twelve hours of continuous recording. I don't know of any third-party batts that can match the new BP-950G and 970G.

Yea but Chris.... At $135 bucks??: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ist&sku=410296

(while nice to have, i never bought about designer jeans) *smile*

for that price, I can buy TWELVE (12) of the off-brands.

hell, if someone really wants one...I might sell them mine! *smile*

- Shannon

It's a $9,000 camera and you won't put a $135 battery on it? Heh.

Sure, but... you gotta keep changing 'em out.

Long-running batteries are interesting, but there are a couple of drawbacks. One is that generally speaking, along with the long run time you will also see long charging time. This can be an issue if you suddenly find yourself with a set of down batteries due to an oversight, or a spontaneous shoot comes up and your batteries have drained down since your last gig. Which brings up the other question--with so many battery chemistries out there, it's hard to know what is the best state to leave batteries in; charged, not charged, is it OK to charge them from a half-burned state or should you discharge first, are occasional discharges to an empty state necessary or useful, etc...

Of course, if you have found cheap cells that you are happy with, in some ways that is all moot as they are virtually disposable.

but ain't they lithium-based batteries? those charge fairly quickly don't they?

anyway, i read that according the manuals, the XL H1 takes 7.4 volts batteries instead of 7.2 volts. doesn't this mean that it's risque to use lower voltage batteries on a $9k cam?

PEOPLE.....

.....They're fourteen dollars!

I spent that much at Subway on a Turkey Swiss footlong extra avocado, 6 cookies and and a extra bag of chips for my buddy.

Beleive me...I wont run outta battery juice in a single day. *smile*

gee wiz.

- ShannonRawls.com

Lithium batteries generally take longer to charge--but this may be because they have a higher capacity.

A 7.2V battery is generally hotter--right off the charger it might be 8V or so. If the H1 is looking for a nominally higher charge, it will simply shut off earlier when the voltage reaches a certain level, no harm done. You can only damage a camera by feeding it too much voltage, not too little. It's likely that you could put up to 8.5V into a nominally 7.2V camera before it would start to suffer (don't go out and try it, though!)

As far as the batteries being risque, perhaps if they have pix of naked women embossed on the side? (Is Lenmar still putting flames on their batteries, or am I hopelessly stuck in the 80's?)

Remember...a 7.4volt battery becomes a 7.3 volt battery as soon as you hook it up to someting and turn it on, a few moments later, it's now a 7.2 volt batter, a moment later, its now a 7.1, 7.0, 6.9, 6.8 so on and so forth.

it's the continuous amperage that powers the electronics.

- ShannonRawls.com

i've always found underpowering an electronic device (underpowering speakers or PC power supplies) will kill it and NOT overpowering. there are circuit protections for overvoltage, but not for undervoltage, thus a great # of electronics will die as a result of poor community electricity delivery.

well, it's ok for this camera. The actual manual that comes with it says you can use all the older batteries. it's actually printed in the book with model numbers and all.

So it's ok everybody. I'm not gonna malnourish my H1. *smile*

- ShannonRawls.com

I'm going to stretch my understanding of electronics here, but I believe that with speakers it's a matter of providing correct resistance more than voltage, and with PC power supplies we are talking AC whereas with camcorders it's DC. thus different conditions apply. Any device that is intended to be powered from batteries will naturally be designed to accomodate the concept of underpowering, because as Shannon points out all batteries will deliver a declining output. The device is designed to shut off when a certain level is reached. No harm can be done. As far as overvoltage, "smart" devices use a self-resetting fuse right after the battery connection but many do not have such a thing and it's absolutely possible to blow a board or other components by feeding it too much voltage. Sadly, I've done it myself. My Steadicam managed to accidentally feed somewhere between 28-30v into a 12v nominal teleprompter monitor on a shoot a few weeks ago which quickly blew up an internal board and sent us scrambling for a replacement (seen here).

Don't think of it as underpowering as the battery terminal voltage goes down. Modern electronics use "DC/DC converters" which draw charge from the battery in gulps of the proper size dependent of the voltage (to a point). When the terminal voltage is low (at the end of the discharge cycle) the converter simply draws current for a longer time or does it more often as required to keep the output voltage at a fixed (regulated) value. It is this regulated voltage which actually powers the circuits. If you were to monitor the average current out of a battery you would see that it increases as the terminal voltage decreases thus keeping the power draw constant. By monitoring the voltage the device can tell when the battery is nearing depletion and give you first a warning and then an automatic, but graceful, shut down.