Poll: Cameras with Built-In Battery as Backup Power or Hot Swap Option – Would You Want It?

September 3^rd, 202414

Poll: Cameras with Built-In Battery as Backup Power or Hot Swap Option - Would You Want It?

by Nino LeitnerSeptember 3^rd, 2024

After last week’s poll, when we asked whether you would want a camera with built-in memory, I thought there might be one thing even more useful: a camera with a built-in battery. Before you say “no,” hear me out.

Lots of devices we use every day have built-in batteries. I still remember the outcry when Apple released the first iPhone, which was the first phone with a built-in battery. This has since become the norm for smartphones and enabled them to become much thinner than prior mobile phones ever used to be. Yet, in professional areas, built-in batteries are still frowned upon for obvious reasons: It means being unable to swap the battery when it runs dry and having to charge “on the spot” during a shoot, which is less than ideal.

In-camera built-in battery—an addition, not a replacement, for the swappable one

So here’s the idea: adding a built-in “safety” battery that would keep the camera running for, say, 5 or 10 minutes only while you are swapping the removable battery could be a huge win. It would essentially make cameras hot-swappable without bulky third-party accessories as we know them, particularly for larger cinema cameras that use V-mount or Gold-Mount.

If a mirrorless camera manufacturer built such a tiny battery into their cameras, it would add little size or weight to the overall body of a camera, but it would enable shooters to run continuously for hours on batteries, even when they don’t have access to mains power. Outdoor events or wildlife filmmaking come to mind, which often need continuous coverage for hours on end, and mains power is usually tough or impossible to get hold of in many places.

In my opinion, that built-in battery should also be automatically charged by the removable battery, guaranteeing it’s full when needed.

Downsides of having a built-in battery

Of course, having a built-in battery comes with its downsides, particularly because battery lifespan is arguably lower than the average camera’s lifespan. And if it’s built in, it means it becomes a serviceable repair once it breaks. In addition to that, it might make transportation of the cameras more difficult as devices with built-in batteries are subject to different regulations, especially when it comes to shipping such devices or flying with them. However, considering how low the capacity of such a suggested battery would have to be to make a camera able to hot-swap removable batteries, I think those issues could be negligible.

What do you think? Let us know via the poll below.

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