Anybody ever seen this? SL3 with extremely low battery

[PBart]

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It's the battery. I've had lots of weird stuff happen even in my studio when the battery was really low or the battery was just going bad. Eventually batteries do go bad.

Also, I have some leftover older batteries for my Sl2 before they updated to the newer ones with more capacity. I accidentally placed an older battery into my SL3 months ago and was going crazy wondering what the heck was going on with direct capture and some glitches. Now I mark all my batteries so I don't mix them up. If one starts to show signs of acting up, I'll replace it right away. The SL3 eats up batteries, I have 8 batteries so I always have enough. 

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[jaapv]

On 4/14/2025 at 4:04 AM, Stuart Richardson said:

The bodies have different sensor readout speeds so the electronic shutter will cause banding at different speeds. Please, read up on it before you throw out a perfectly good card. This has nothing to do with cards or batteries. It is the fact that artificial lighting is turning on and off at high speed and when using an non-global electric shutter the rate at which the sensor reads can intersect with the flickering of the lighting in a way that causes banding. It is a very common problem. Next time you are having the issue, switch to mechanical shutter and you’ll see that the problem goes away.

But Stuart, sensor readout is in horizontal lines, not vertical ones. 

[BernardC]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

But Stuart, sensor readout is in horizontal lines, not vertical ones. 

It's horizontal lines in landscape orientation, and vertical in portrait orientation. The picture that opened this thread is cropped vertically (portrait orientation), and the pitcher's leg has four shadows, which suggests artificial lighting.

[jaapv]

Ah I did not notice the crop. 

[T25UFO]

On 4/13/2025 at 7:08 PM, ALScott said:

My mistake. Assumed all would know what the fence around a baseball field is like

ASSUME just makes an ass out of you and me.  A bit like me assuming everyone knows what a cricket pitch looks like.  And more people around the world play cricket than baseball. 

I do find American sports amusing - a WORLD SERIES played by a small group in one country, and using the word FOOTBALL for a game where feet and ball don’t come into contact 😂

[ALScott]

15 hours ago, T25UFO said:

ASSUME just makes an ass out of you and me.  A bit like me assuming everyone knows what a cricket pitch looks like.  And more people around the world play cricket than baseball. 

I do find American sports amusing - a WORLD SERIES played by a small group in one country, and using the word FOOTBALL for a game where feet and ball don’t come into contact 😂

My assumption was made based on the interest in photography here.  No way that was near the first time people had seen a baseball related photo anywhere else throughout their life.  I've heard all this far too many times from all my British friends.  Y'all must be taught this in school.  With so many people playing cricket I would think most do have a clue what the field looks like.  A foot comes into contact with the ball to start every single football game and after every touchdown and on some potentially game changing moments in between.

[algrove]

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Trying to figure out why shoot only Electronic shutter when shooting fast moving subjects in sports. Also why keep shooting when battery low? IMHO both situations can lead to poor results.

[algrove]

On 4/16/2025 at 9:29 AM, PBart said:

It's the battery. I've had lots of weird stuff happen even in my studio when the battery was really low or the battery was just going bad. Eventually batteries do go bad.

Also, I have some leftover older batteries for my Sl2 before they updated to the newer ones with more capacity. I accidentally placed an older battery into my SL3 months ago and was going crazy wondering what the heck was going on with direct capture and some glitches. Now I mark all my batteries so I don't mix them up. If one starts to show signs of acting up, I'll replace it right away. The SL3 eats up batteries, I have 8 batteries so I always have enough. 

My SL3 warns me when I insert an older lower power battery suggesting some functions might be negatively affected.

[ALScott]

7 minutes ago, algrove said:

Trying to figure out why shoot only Electronic shutter when shooting fast moving subjects in sports. Also why keep shooting when battery low? IMHO both situations can lead to poor results.

To get 15fps e-shutter is the only option and it has provided excellent results so far.  High FPS, especially on a pitcher, gives a ton of frames to choose from.  I was in a spot during the pitching that I could not leave and grab the extra battery.  Didn’t realize it was so low until it was too late.

[algrove]

Understand OP, but why not try to get certain moments of a pitch say at 1/8000 without shutter.

[ALScott]

1 hour ago, algrove said:

Understand OP, but why not try to get certain moments of a pitch say at 1/8000 without shutter.

1/8000 still wouldn’t get me more FPS which is what I learned and was taught was more important.  Plus, shooting too high of a shutter speed can sometimes make some sport shots look weird, like a pose, not action.  Please tell me if I am wrong, I love to learn.  I was lucky enough to learn from one of the best photo journalist/sports photographers ever and I still stick to those lessons.  But, that was a long time ago and much has changed.  I know when I got the EOS1v hs it was a game changer for fps, not shutter speed.  I do know that even with 15fps you still have to predict the shot you want and you will still miss it.  The only thing that doesn’t miss is video.  And I didn’t use 30fps as I can’t bear the thought of editing that many frames and I was trying 15fps which got me everything I wanted.

[algrove]

I mainly no longer shoot sports, but it might be worth trying different techniques to get different results. Variety is the spice of photography here perhaps.😀

[LocalHero1953]

When burst shooting I pick the fastest rate that still uses the mechanical shutter. This is usually for dance photography (esp. leaps), and 9fps with the SL2-S. I get the poses I need. I don't use faster rates or the electric shutter because of problems from both banding and distortion.

I hadn't seen the multiple shadows from the pitcher's leg till @BernardC pointed it out, so there obviously is artificial lighting. This looks like a classic artificial light and electronic shutter effect to me.

I don't have the SL3 or SL3-S, but when the battery gets too low on the SL2-S the camera just stops working, with no anomalies. At worst I lose one image that it fails to save.

Edited April 21 by LocalHero1953

[ALScott]

41 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

When burst shooting I pick the fastest rate that still uses the mechanical shutter. This is usually for dance photography (esp. leaps), and 9fps with the SL2-S. I get the poses I need. I don't use faster rates or the electric shutter because of problems from both banding and distortion.

I hadn't seen the multiple shadows from the pitcher's leg till @BernardC pointed it out, so there obviously is artificial lighting. This looks like a classic artificial light and electronic shutter effect to me.

I don't have the SL3 or SL3-S, but when the battery gets too low on the SL2-S the camera just stops working, with no anomalies. At worst I lose one image that it fails to save.

Dancing is a lot faster movement and I would expect those issues now that I know how it happens.  Baseball is slower but it could happen in some cases.  I will drop back to less fps when it makes sense.  After reading all the responses it does seem to be related to the e shutter and artificial light so that is good.  At a minimum that and/or the low battery.  Either way not a “problem” that can’t be easily avoided.  Plus, I have learned something from this related to using the e shutter vs. mechanical.  

@algrove I didn’t have time for trying anything in this instance as it was a quick pitcher swap and it’s my Grandson and the last game of this portion of the season.  Plus, I had tried all kinds of stuff the whole game.  It all worked out well.  See my last post in SL3 vs SL3S topic.  Also, I shot sports for a long time and have always found sticking with what you know works best for me.  Once it happens it’s gone, no do overs.  That’s spicy enough.😁  All photography is this way, moments in time, but GS asks if I got any good shots every time within an hour after the game.  I’d rather not disappoint.

[jaapv]

18 hours ago, ALScott said:

1/8000 still wouldn’t get me more FPS which is what I learned and was taught was more important.  Plus, shooting too high of a shutter speed can sometimes make some sport shots look weird, like a pose, not action.  Please tell me if I am wrong, I love to learn.  I was lucky enough to learn from one of the best photo journalist/sports photographers ever and I still stick to those lessons.  But, that was a long time ago and much has changed.  I know when I got the EOS1v hs it was a game changer for fps, not shutter speed.  I do know that even with 15fps you still have to predict the shot you want and you will still miss it.  The only thing that doesn’t miss is video.  And I didn’t use 30fps as I can’t bear the thought of editing that many frames and I was trying 15fps which got me everything I wanted.

A sports photographer a very long time ago told me: in a burst 10 fps and 1/1000th  your shutter is open 1% of the time so you have a 99% chance of missing the shot. I never forgot. 

[LocalHero1953]

2 hours ago, jaapv said:

A sports photographer a very long time ago told me: in a burst 10 fps and 1/1000th  your shutter is open 1% of the time so you have a 99% chance of missing the shot. I never forgot. 

So shooting sports at 10fps and 1/10sec is better?

I think I'm missing something in that rationale.....

[jaapv]

Quite possible. Not my hyperbole 😉But there is a point hidden in there.