Editor Note: It’s about ten years old now as of this update – but enough people are searching for information about cameras and batteries that this keeps coming up on my admin page, so…as I continue to restore lost content (courtesy of The Wayback Machine, tyvm again 🙂 ), here’s the re-print of that article:
Battery Info
The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that the Transportation Safety Administration has implemented new policies regarding traveling with cameras and batteries. Specifically, they explain what battery types can be brought on airplanes. The new rule speaks to the Lithium batteries we’ve all come to know and love. That’s right, your Li-ion batteries are now a restricted item. What are the rules? Well, it turns out you can have one in your device, so your camera, laptop, cell phone, and other such equipment is safe. You can also carry two spares, provided each is stored in its own sealed plastic bag or the original packaging. Loose batteries, whether in carry-on or checked baggage, are no longer permitted.
Lithium content is also restricted now to less than 25 grams. Virtually all cell phone, laptop, camera, and watch batteries will meet these criteria, including standard AA and AAA batteries. From what I have been able to gather, the aggregate total is in reference to the total Lithium content per battery. This is not a definitive piece of information but is the best I can determine from the travel sites (referenced at the end of this post).
For those that are curious, I have been able to determine that Lithium content is based on a factor of 0.3 per cell multiplied by the rated capacity in ampere hours. If you look at the back of your batteries, it will tell you certain key information that can be used to determine your total Lithium content. For example, on my Canon XT, the back panel shows that it has a rating of 7.4 volts, with 720 Milliamp Hours. It’s the mAh that we need to use for determining how much Lithium we have. So, if I take the rating of 720 mAh and convert that to regular Ampere Hours (remember your metric system?) I get a value of 0.72 (720/1000). Now, I would use that 0.72 and multiply it by 0.3 to get my total lithium content.
So, the XT/XTi batteries have about 0.21 grams of Lithium. Here’s a chart of common Canon cameras, their battery models, and the total Lithium content:
| Camera Model | Battery Model | mAh value | Ah value | Lithium content per cell | Number of Cells | Total Lithium Content (in grams) |
| Rebel XT (350d) | NB-2LH | 720 | 0.72 | 0.216 | 1 | 0.216 |
| Rebel XTi | NB-2LH | 720 | 0.72 | 0.216 | 1 | 0.216 |
| 20D | BP-511A | 1390 | 1.39 | 0.417 | 2 | 0.834 |
| 30D | BP-511A | 1390 | 1.39 | 0.417 | 2 | 0.834 |
| 40D | BP-511A | 1390 | 1.39 | 0.417 | 2 | 0.834 |
| 5D | BP-511A | 1390 | 1.39 | 0.417 | 2 | 0.834 |
| 1D Mark II | NP-E3 | 1650 | 1.65 | 0.495 | 3 | 1.485 |
| 1D Mark III | LP-E4 | 2300 | 2.3 | 0.69 | 3 | 2.07 |
| 1Ds Mark III | LP-E4 | 2300 | 2.3 | 0.69 | 3 | 2.07 |
Camera: 0.63 grams (0.21×3)It should be noted here that the 1D Mark II series of the EOS family does not use a Lithium battery, rather a Nicad battery, so it should be exempt from the new restriction. Regardless, at most, any EOS battery will yield considerably less than 1 gram, so with a total of 3 (one in the body and 2 spares), you are just a hair over 2 grams of Lithium (2.1 to be exact). When coupled with your laptop Lithium content, and cellular phone content, you should still be well within the parameters.
Another note to be aware of that has come to my attention is that some of the Canon batteries do in fact contain more than one cell. If your camera battery (or any other Li-ion battery for that matter) has more than 1 cells, to determine the total Lithium content, multiply the result from the formula by the number of cells to get the grand total. For instance, the LP-E4 has 3 cells, so the formula would be:
2300 (mAh) divided by 1000 = 2.3 (Ah) * 0.3 (conversion factor) = 0.69 grams of Lithium per cell x 3 cells = 2.07 total grams of Lithium for this battery.
As for other devices, I just checked my cell phone and laptop. The former (a Motorola v325i), and that has 880 mAh, so comes in at 0.264 grams ( 0.88×0.3). The laptop comes in a little closer as my Macbook Pro (15″) has an Li-ion battery that comes in at 60 Wh (no milliWatt hours here!…) , so the yield there is 18 grams of Lithium. I’d read elsewhere that the 17″ MBP has a Wh capacity of 68 (or 20.4 grams of Lithium).
What it basically comes down to, is that you now must put your spare batteries in a plastic baggie, and can only tote those in your carry-on. You cannot transport them in checked luggage.) Here’s my theoretical total Lithium content if I travelled with everything and the maximum number of spares:
- Cell phone: 0.78 grams (0.26×3)
- Laptop: 54 grams (18×3)
- Grand total = 55.41 grams
As a means of reference, here’s the links I visited that aided in filing the gaps to put this resource together – thanks to all the references:
Wall Street Journal Article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119911051123859361.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Steven Fettig’s Blog (for MBP 17″ numbers):
http://stevenfettig.com/mythoughts/archives/000728.php
Safe Travel (note the [dot] GOV distinction)
http://safetravel.dot.gov/whats_new_batteries.html
Calculating Lithium Content
http://www.rosebatteries.com/pdfs/DOTshipping.pdf