How to Keep Track of Your Battery Levels

January 29, 2013

in Articles,Gear,Tutorials

batteriesIt is the end of a long day of shooting, and you have one last crucial shot/interview to get, when all a sudden “click!!!!” your camera shuts down. Your heart sinks as you check the camera screen to find that evil little empty battery symbol mockingly blinking back. “Its ok… I have spare batteries” you say to yourself as you franticly search your bag for batteries…

SNAP.

You know how you told yourself you would keep your full and empty batteries separate? Well, you didn’t, and now you get to check each battery in your camera while everyone else waits and watches… And you just missed your shot. Good times, good times.

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This is painful to a lot of us because we’ve all been there. It just plain sucks. BUT today I’ll show you my solution to this problem.

Most people don’t know this, but there is a built in way to label your batteries as full or empty. This works best with the Canon LP-E6 batteries, but you can make it work with any battery with a simple mod. If you look at the back of your LP-E6 battery you will see two colors, blue and gray.

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Now take a look at the battery cap/cover, you will notice a small battery icon cutout:

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If your battery is fully charged, simply position the cutout over the blue part. If it is empty, put it over the gray. Bam! Simple no?

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If you don’t have LP-E6 batteries, or your off brand ones don’t have the blue side, simply take a colored marker and mark where the cutout goes. Here I just used a green marker.

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If your batteries don’t have cutouts on the covers, you might be able to take a drill and make a hold in the cover. Otherwise, leave the covers off the empty batteries, and on the full ones.

Now that you have a system for marking your batteries, you can store them anyway you want. I keep all my batteries together in one place because I know with one glance I can tell what my battery situation is.

Do you have a different system? Have any gear storing tips for us? Share in the comments!

Need batteries? I’d recommend Amazon or B&H Photo Video. And if you buy from these links you will be supporting DSLR Video Shooter. Thank you!

Related content:

  1. Episode 45: Pearstone LP-E6 Battery Charger Review
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  3. Episode 47: Vello DSLR Battery Grips
  4. Beware of Counterfeit Camera Accessories
  5. 10 Best DSLR Gear Purchases for Beginners

Tagged as: Batteries, Gear, Tips

  • Iker Riera

    Nice, didn’t know this. My method is keeping the battery with his yellow cap/cover if it’s charged. Once is empty i throw it in my bag/pockets without it. This way i know which batteries are charged without even having to look,

  • http://twitter.com/erik_hagen Erik Hagen

    Simple. Brilliant. Love it. Maybe one day these batteries will have a power gauge like MacBook batteries.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jpburnside Jonathan Burnside

    T2i batteries only fit in the cover one way round. I do the same as Iker, the cover doesn’t go back on once it’s been in the camera.

    Something I’ve done with other batteries, and would do if I didn’t have covers is just use a piece of tape over the contacts. The tape has to come off for the battery to go in the camera, and then you know any that don’t have tape need charged.

  • http://www.facebook.com/cwlove Chris Love

    Woah! How did I not know that?! Just checked my battery cover and arranged it propoerly. thanks for the tip!

  • BrotherBloat

    that’s awesome! wish the LP-8 crop-body batts had the same thing… :)

  • Sam S.

    This is probably more well known than the battery trick, but I position my used sd cards backwards in my card case if they are used. So if the brand is showing, it’s a fresh card.

  • http://twitter.com/tsozik Dmitry Tsozik

    I put thin rubber bands on charged batteries. Remove it before putting battery in camera. No band = empty.

  • http://twitter.com/brianpowellinfo Brian Powell

    I’m always surprised by how many shooters that don’t know/use this feature…

  • http://twitter.com/brianpowellinfo Brian Powell

    I do the same thing :)

  • http://twitter.com/brianpowellinfo Brian Powell

    That works too, but covers help keep the contacts clean?

  • Iker Riera

    Sure, this is mostly when changing batteries during “run n gun” type shooting. During a break or on more controlled shoots i put the covers and store them aways (or recharge them).

  • Ted

    I use a really ghetto (but effective) method. I carry two ziploc bags. One has a green label on it, and has charged batteries in it. The other has a red label on it, and I drop batteries into it as they get used up.