Timelapse battery life

[Harbrimar]

We had our garden open today; we don't have a mansion just a local garden club and village event! and I decided to try out the timelapse function on the camera. The intention was to take 720 images at 30 second intervals i.e to cover a 6 hour period. 32mb SanDisk 280mb/s card. Camera set to record RAW. The battery was at 94% when I started but I only achieved 344 Images before the battery was flat which was just short of 3 hours. On the J2 menu setting Auto Power was Off, Sleep Off and Quick Sleep was also off. Are there any better settings to achieve more images? I suspect that I would get more on JPEG setting but prefer to use RAW.

On the plus side I had my camera with 12-40mm 2.8 Pro lens on a tripod with no protection in several downpours of rain with no problems whatsoever.

[Wee man]

Re: Timelapse Interval Setting Battery life

If not using one fit a grip for a second battery or get a mains adapter?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Harbrimar]

Re: Timelapse battery life

I managed to buy a second hand HLD-9 battery holder from Wex for a good price. Little bit reluctant to use a mains adapter in the rain! In hindsight I should have experimented using the electronic shutter but I will try that next time. Thanks for your response.

[wornish]

Re: Timelapse battery life

I have had the same issue doing long exposure astro photography.

One way to help extend battery life is to reduce the LCD display time Menu - Cog - J2 to 8 secs.

Also I found ( might be just a perception) that charging the battery to 100% makes a big difference the drop in percentage available is not linear and seems to speed up as time goes on. That said I also went for the grip with extra battery as the end solution.

[brasche]

Re: Timelapse battery life

Other ways to extend battery life are to turn off stabilization, use the viewfinder, and use manual focus. I also set the exposure manually: speed, aperture, ISO, and white balance. There's not much for the processor to do except record the images.