Battery life observed

[Chevvyf1]

Re: Battery life observed

Yes, that is my suspicion (the elves thing). I'm not certain the menu setting does anything more than changing the point that the flashing or half battery sign appears.

I did try ignoring the amber flash of death and you don't get many more shots before the camera switches off. Now that may still be a software decision to quit rather than the battery actually collapsing.

Hopefully I will have a total of 4 batteries and 2 charges by next week, but that's not quite the right answer really.


EDIT: Latest battery charge did 135 shots.


Pete

Pete, there are some Duff batteries maybe a new pair and I always run to the last drop of juice then recharge

[snaarman]

Re: Battery life observed

Pete, there are some Duff batteries maybe a new pair and I always run to the last drop of juice then recharge

I now have 4 batteries, 2 Oly and 2 ProCell (or whatever) and they are all roughly the same. I'm coming to the following conclusions:

For max number of shots: use burst mode, don't use the rear screen much, turn IS off and run the camera until it stops. (Think motor racing for example.. Not the way I work unfortunately).

For least number of shots: Wander around with the camera switched on, looking for suitable subjects. Switch IS with half press on* (This is the way I generally work)

Pete

*I think IS with half press is the battery draining culprit...

[StephenL]

Re: Battery life observed

I've been hesitating about providing my battery life figures, mainly because I don't check.

However, what I can now say is that I'm on the same charged battery (still mainly showing three bars but sometimes dipping to two when it feels like it) for just one month. During that time I've probably taken about 100 shots.

You see, this estate is so large we rarely have the opportunity to leave it, and so just about everything on it has been photographed several times.

And my style of photography hasn't changed since film days - try to make every shot count 'cos it costs.

However, in this time, I've delved deeply into the menus for seemingly hours at a time, trying to make sense of them. I tend to switch the camera off between shots. IS is on half-press. Review is switched off, but I do sometimes examine the result afterwards. Every time I download photos from the camera, even though its only a few, I reformat the card in camera. IS is always on. I very rarely use burst mode - it wastes film.

PS also, in that time, I've also been playing with my recently-acquired Fuji X10, so that will have reduced the number of photos taken on the E-M5

[brian1208]

Re: Battery life observed

In my last trip I ran both batteries down until the camera stopped working and found something I hadn't spotted before.

The final image in each series as the battery finally drained was tagged as having been "Damaged" and it was not readable in LR4.

Luckily they weren't important shots but its not something I had read about / expected

[StephenL]

Re: Battery life observed

Were these raw or jpegs?

[brian1208]

Re: Battery life observed

Sorry, should have said, I always shoot RAW only (I like to have "Negatives" like in the days of "Real " photography )

[pault]

Re: Battery life observed

Hi all. Thought you might be interested in this article by Steve Huff re: extending battery usage life.

http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2012/11/07/how-to-tweak-your-olympus-om-d-e-m5-to-shoot-sports-by-jim-huffman/

In particular read pages 5 / 6 "geek tweak"
Looks like you can get 4x improvement in battery life, in region 1200 shots
Regards
Pault

[Jetset95]

Re: Battery life observed

Sorry Pault can you be more specific about the link - when I read this post it all appears on one page (with a massive scroll bar!). Is the comment you refer to in the main post or in the blog replies at the bottom?

Thanks, James

[pault]

Re: Battery life observed

Hi James
Scroll through the page past 4 pictures then you come to heading "NOTE: The below is a geek tweak to the oly that you can skip, or read if really interested"
At this point he describes settings.
Hope this helps
Pault

[brian1208]

Re: Battery life observed

In my last trip I ran both batteries down until the camera stopped working and found something I hadn't spotted before.

The final image in each series as the battery finally drained was tagged as having been "Damaged" and it was not readable in LR4.

Luckily they weren't important shots but its not something I had read about / expected

I've found the same thing a couple of times so tend to swap the batteries out before it finally stops on empty

(I have my camera set on the "Geek Twek" settings, found them by trial and error. Makes the EM-5 behave more like my old Canon and under the right conditions I am seeing very high shots / charge)

[snaarman]

Re: Battery life observed

Hmm. I already have mine set this way.

It may be that the latest update (silent elves version) saves a bit of battery but I wouldn't describe the results as sparkling.

I think you get more shots out of the battery if you take bursts of shots. If you wander around with the camera on looking at the occasional scene and taking the occasional picture then it doesn't do to well then...

Pete

[brian1208]

Re: Battery life observed

Agreed, I get my best battery life using short bursts of 4fps when the action is there, then switching off during the lulls (airshows and sailboarding for instance)

[StephenL]

Re: Battery life observed

I agree with Pete. Down Under I took about 1300 shots, mainly as Pete described, on 3 batteries over 3 weeks.