Batteries.

Some have been asking about batteries for the K10 and K20. I was asked how my NO-400 Minolta battery was holding out. Both of my batteries ran out of petrol this morning. The NP-400 minolta bettery is holding its charge and I have had it for over a year now, maybe two. I paid about 9.00 pounds for it. I wil be buying two more of them. Here is a link to purchase the NP-400. If you have any doubts give it a try. I did and don't regret it.

http://www.diamondbackbatt.com/minoltaequivalentnp-400battery.aspx?engine=google...

If you are in the UK, you can get a similar battery for less money from www.7dayshop.com - with free postage as well.

7day are excellent

Thanks, I will check them out.

I have one Pentax battery and three from 7day and over the last 6618 shots on my K20D I have been logging each battery's performance. I usually change the battery when it shows empty and not when it completely runs out. However we must bear the inaccuracy of the battery meter and a personal bugbear of the K20D.

The Pentax battery has lasted an average 229 shots per charge (best 273 and worst 162 (completely flat)).

For the other three they have averaged 209, 22 and 223 shots per charge (best 362 and worst 132).

The average number of shots per charge for all four batteries is 221.

My Pentax battery at least is not significantly better than the other three but what is of concern for me is the poor battery life I get compared to what Pentax quote and other users seem to get. All my batteries go in the camera freshly charged, I very rarely use the flash and perhaps only moderate chimping. Could there be some other issues here? Do some cameras have a higher load or could it be the lens used? I use my 16-50 lens for probably 90% of the time.

Any thoughts?

Jonathan

Well you're way down on expectation, so maybe you spend a lot of time focusing on various things, or maybe use the rear screen more than average?

I presume you rotate the batteries so they all get used?

I've never noted the number of shots per charge that we get, but it seems to be many hundreds at least, certainly not as few as just over 200.

I have to agree with John, 200 is very low. I just got back from a holiday and took a Partly used battery and 2 fully charged spares.

I took over 400 shots with the partly used battery and never had to change it And I am always reviewing and playing with the rear screen. I can only think you must have a power drain or something. Or do you live in the North Pole :

Deltic,

Do you turn the camera off between shots or do you let the "Auto Power Off" kick in, or have you set it to a high value 30minutes or OFF?

Auto Power Off possibly leaves the processor and CCD in a low power mode so will continue to drain power but will allow it to come back on quicker.

If you tend to take a lot of pictures in a very short time the battery can appear to be dead, even when it is very nearly fully charged.

I get less than 300 shots from a K20D charge too when taking quite a while per shot.

What is relevant, rather than the number of shots, is the amount of time the camera is operating and the amount you are using AF, etc.

Don't worry about it unless it's actually causing signifant inconvenience.

The other factor we haven't mentioned is exposure time. Someone shooting macro subjects with long exposure times, or night shots, will use a lot more battery power.

I have the auto power off set to only a couple of mins, if I am carrying it around its just a half press on the shutter to bring it back to life.
But I turn it off if I am not using it, and its back in the bag.

Some interesting comments from you all. All the batteries have had about equal use.

I did wonder if I spent a lot of time focusing and certainly when I'm linesiding shooting trains I do. However I've just spent a couple of weeks in Romania where I was shooting more "from the hip" and the batteries were still only lasting 200 or so shots.

It's set to turn off after 2 or is it 3 minutes?

I'm in hot Kent and around 4500 of my shots taken whilst I have been monitoring battery life have been in warm conditions in China or Romania.

I don't tend to use the screen much, because in anything next to dull light I find it unusable. I'd be interested to know how much better the K-7's is.