battery life and and DSLRs

[jlemire]

well, I've had my K100D for 4 days now and have taken somewhere around 150 or so

photos with it and I have depleted my first batch of AA batteries. Is this

normal? The batteries were the Panasonic alkaline ones that came with the camera.

 

Should I use AA lithium? Ni-MN rechargables? CR-V3 lithium?

 

What have you found works best? Thanks!

[jerry thirsty]

Rechargeable lithium RCR-V3:

 

http://thomasdistributing.com/mpc-c301.htm

 

You have to be careful because some brands put out too high a voltage, but I've been using these in my DS for a year and half and they are good. More up front cost, but probably cheaper in the long run. They don't self-discharge much at all, and last for maybe 400-600 shots depending on how you use them.

[godfrey]

Alkaline AAs are only useful for emergency purposes, they are not high enough capacity

for useful lifespan.

 

I take the following strategy:

 

- Working from home, I use 2400mah NiMH AAs. They're good for about 600-700

exposures in my experience, and I usually shoot 300-400 exposures a week. Every week,

whether they need it or not, I recharge them. They're also very good in my flash units. This

saves money in the long run and reduces toxic waste to dispose of.

 

- For travel purposes, I use AA or CRV3 Lithium disposables. They're good for 1100-1300

exposures per set and eliminate the need for battery maintenance while traveling. For a

typical three week trip where I expect to shoot up to 5000 exposures, I carry one set in the

camera and four sets of spares. They're light, last forever on the shelf, and give the

longest lifespan in the camera.

 

On my recent trip, I carried my de rigeur five sets but only made 1600 exposures. I

swapped in a fresh set of batteries at about exposure # 1250. My second DS body still has

the last set that I fitted to it last year, with about 1000 exposures made on them so far.

 

Godfrey

[ivo_miesen]

On my istDs I get a bit more than 1GB of photo's from one set of NiMH. So everytime I swap a 1GB card, I also change the battery's. That works for me. I still carry the lithium battery's which I got whit the camera as an emergency spare, and mostly 1 or 2 sets of NiMH battery's. I can also use them for my flash and for my CD-player.

[tondegoijer]

Hai,

 

First of all, never assume the batteries that come with the camera to be fresh. First of all get a good set of quality fresh batteries and see what happens.

 

We own a DS and use it with the original CR-V3, we shot about 450 pictures on and off with flash. It is still going strong. In other appliances (flash and other camera's)we use good NiMh cells, I like GP as a brand and we get good results from these.

 

Gr.

Ton

 

Gr.

Ton

[Jochen_S]

I didn't use anything besides NiMhs yet. - I had some with me whenever I got a DSLR. I can't totally agree about GP as a brand, I have some compareably dissapointing aaas made by them I in my wireless phone.

 

I didn't test if the specs quoted by Pentax in their manuals are right, but they seem trustworthy to me. I carry rather freshly charged backup batteries everywhere I take the camera. I also recharge before any serious shooting and now with 2 DSLRs I digged out a 2nd charger.

 

With the *istD 2 sets always got me through 5 GB of RAWs. According to the manual the K100D seems to drain more. I haven't tested mine yet.

[david_l7]

From my set of 1900mah NiMH, it squeezed 300+ shots, about half with SR. With my other set of NiMH, the battery meter acts a little weird. It vaies from time to time. Sometime it says depleted, but a minute later, it says full...

[mountainvisions]

Jim,

 

This is a copy of my post in another thread. Since it seems to come up a bit i'm tired of typing it. To summarize. With AA lithiums and a battery grip (not sure if avail for the K100D even as a 3rd party). you should get 2000 shots w/grip or 800 without.

 

just one thing to note. i've now taken over 2500 images on the same 8 AA lithiums. now, i know there were complaints about the ist D's battery capacity but with the grip I have NO issues.

 

As a matter of fact the ist D with 8 AA's by more personal test gets double the shots of the K10D's stated CIPA capacity with 2 proprietary Li-ion batteries.

 

I guess I couldn't be happier getting close to 3000 shots (the power guage is still on full so I figure 200-300 more shots isn't unreasonable) on $16 worth of AA lithiums.

 

Also, the AA lithiums are lighter (then other AA's) and work well in cold weather. I use AA lithiums in my ist 35mm grip into sub 0F temperatures with good success.

[hanh]

Mileage may varies...

 

Since everyone shooting habbits are different. Some use the display a lot to view the images, some don't and some are in between; Therefore, in addition to all the good battery technical details mentioned above, the photographer techniques and habbits influence greatly as to the number of shots one gets from a good set of batteries.

 

Thanks,

Hanh

[derek_heeps]

The 2500mAh Ni-Mh AA cells I use seem to last forever in my *ist D with the battery grip . I

do tend to use my SMC-M series lenses from my film bodies a lot ( I only have the one AF

lens as most of my bodies are manual) . I seldom use the built in flash as I have various Metz

flashes , so these things probably help stretch out camera battery life .

[josphy]

The manual actually specifically states that the alkaline AA batteries that come with the camera are just to test that everything is working okay.

 

I got two sets of the rechargeable 2500mAh NIMH batteries. What I read online is that the capacity of these batteries takes some time to "settle in" after a number of charges. Sure enough, at first it seemed like the cameras was eating through the rechargeables like nothing. Now after several charge cycles, they seem to be lasting MUCH, MUCH longer.

 

Also, I'll note that the CRV3 batteries, although expensive, last FOREVER. I used some on a camping trip to Big Bend and was chimping like crazy reviewing each shot, looking at shots back at camp, etc. etc., and they still lasted great.