ist D battery mystery.

Not a great problem really, but a mystery. I dug out my ist D for a bit of a testing session. I put four Energiser lithium AA batteries and found the camera would not start up, the battery indicator in the top window showed completely empty. Cue some bad language. As the batteries had been stored in a drawer for a couple of years, maybe more, I grabbed a battery tester and to my dismay it showed all four batteries at 100% voltage. Cue quite a bit of bad language. I rather like that camera.

After pondering a while I went and dug out four AA Eneloop batteries and fitted them. Lo and behold, the camera works great. OK, back to the Energisers. Put two into a torch and the torch blasted out full power, as it did with the other two. Now I discover that without any batteries fitted, the battery indicator doesn't show at all but, as mentioned, works fine and shows a full charge with the Eneloops. I'm confused. Anyone have any thoughts? (Not on my confusion, but on the batteries and camera):

Thanks for that. It certainly helps to know that someone else has had a similar experience.
S.

Just a thought - is there anywhere in the settings which allows the type of battery being fitted to be identified? On the K5 you can specify which batteries are fitted in the battery grip in set up

Michael

Funily enough had similar with mine today with same Lithium batteries (which are proving hard to get at the shops) ,Switched off ,removed batteries, replaced batteries , switched on all working fine.

I used to have similar problems with a K-x. Usually resolved by taking the batteries out and re-inserting them, sometimes more than once. Not very scientific I know, but the issue defied logic.

I seem to recall reading on the US forum that the istD family of cameras have a problem seeing fully charged lithium batteries. A fully charged lithium battery is 1.8 volts which causes a problem with the istD. Some people suggest partially discharging the battery to below 1.5 volts. The Eneloop battery is a NiMH with a nominal voltage of 1.2 volts.

Details of various types of AA battery and their voltages can be found here:

https://www.batteryequivalents.com/aa-batteries-size-types-and-equivalents.html

Re. possible shortages...AA Lithium are in short supply...many battery distributors are out of stock of the Lithium AA although they still have stock of the AAA for the moment.

I'm beginning to speculate this might have something to do with the Global Elites stocking their underground bunkers for what they see as an imminent global disaster. The Max Keiser show on RT earlier today, was quoting from a report by the head of Commodities Research at Goldman Sachs saying that there was a fundamental 'Molecule Crisis'...the worst they had seen in the 30 years they have been doing the job.
Whether it was in oil, gas, coal, copper, aluminium...apparently they just can't get what they need...massive shortages.

So...if you need any batteries , cards...general consumables and can get them, might be worth stocking up whilst you still can.

Electric cars are the current fad -- Lord help us when they all need new batteries or we need to dispose of them. They need lithium for batteries. So perhaps those who can are stockpiling the stuff until the price explodes?

Didn't the *ist D have the capacity to take 2CR5 batteries as well as AA? I did have the *ist D but can't remember the configuration. If it did it may be worth trying those if you have some spare.

All Pentax's DSLRs that use AA batteries are very finnicky with which type of batteries they work with but I never had any problems with lithiums in my K200D.

I have had great success with Uniross hybrid rechargeables.
For the shots I took yesterday with my K50 I fitted an adaptor with 4 of these that had been sitting unused for 2 years and they were still OK.

Peter

2 x CR-V3 according to DePressing Review