K-5 battery life

Live view and video eat battery, and have a high power draw which makes the camera run out of juice much earlier than would otherwise be the case (whenever the batteries are depleted during live view, I can normally turn the camera back on again and the battery indicator is back up to halfway, allowing me to take loads more shots - as long as I don't use liveview!)

However, third party batteries are so cheap I would recommend buying a clutch of them from 7dayshop and keep spares at all times.

Yes, I'm aware of that. I've had LV and/or video on for no more than 5 mins in total over all three charges. Surely that isn't going to reduce the battery life to half or less?

Yes, I've noticed that too, towards the end of a charge.

Yes, I don't mind doing that. But I really want to get to the bottom of why I'm finding such a huge difference between actual and advertised performance.

If there's an underlying problem, I want to identify it as soon as possible. Equally (and more likely!), if there's something dumb I'm doing, I'll be happy to correct it.

worth buying/borrowing another battery?

I'd be wondering why. Fortunately Sue uses the same kit and her battery performance should be about the same as mine. This proves to be the case.

It seems you may have some unexpected drain, but the other alternative is a battery that's not up to spec for some reason.

One thing I find excellent about my K5 having moved from the K20D is battery life, Live View does drain it pretty quickly but that's only to be expected - normal usage is excellent

Simon

Yes, two of the three charges I've had were from the Pentax one that came with the camera, the other was a 7dayShop 'equivalent'.

A bit early to say, but they seem much of a muchness. I'm on to the fourth charge with the Pentax battery now, so I'll see how it goes. I've reduced the instant review from 3s to the default 1s, and the auto-power off from 3 min to the default 1 min, but I can't help feeling neither of those is going to turn out to be the culprit.

Having just given the two K-5s a full 16 hour workout for a wedding I can say I am impressed with the battery life. 400 shots with reviews, 200 of which were live view on one Pentax battery for the main camera.

Changed batteries on reaching low but not dead, just in case, for an other 70 or so.

Just thinking about the auto shut off, I have this set at 30 minutes, so that is unlikely to be the problem.

First thing I would do is a reset followed by a firmware refresh. All computers (which your camera effectively is) can become corrupted.

Secondly, as Gwyn suggested, turn off auto review.

Thirdly, what temperatures are you storing/using your batteries at? If you are letting them get cold on a regular basis they will drain. Try keeping them in an inside pocket rather than in your camera bag. Just be careful not to short them.

It wouldn't do any harm I suppose... although will it install a firmware at the same level as the one already present?

Well, I've returned it to the default. Since the book values will presumably be published for default settings, I want to make sure I'm comparing like with like.

It's not a temperature issue, I don't think. The batteries are kept at room temperature and until very recently it's been pretty warm.

Thanks for the suggestions.

The only thought I had, and forgive me if this is a stupid question, but how have you assessed that the batteries are flat?

Are they so flat that the camera won't turn on anymore, or is it that the battery indicator is showing empty? If it is the latter, I'd suggest that you try fully draining the battery somehow (eg taking a long video, then repeatedly turning on live view when the camera is showing low battery, focusing a lot, mucking about with powerzoom if you have such a lens etc) until such a point as the camera won't switch on anymore. I'd recommend you do this with no memory card in, or at least a memory card with nothing important on.

Once you've done that, you might find that the next full charge will last longer. That tends to be the way it goes with my phone, anyway!

Cant say as I keep track of the number of shots taken, but the battery life of my Pentax far outlasts that of either of my two cheap knock offs, if yours are all pretty much the same then maybe you Pentax battery is a little under par.

I suppose battery life in camera manuals is very much like fuel consumption in car handbooks, do you get what the handbook says out of yours because I dont

Not a stupid question at all

Yes, pretty much. I realise that a brief period of 'off' will tend to let it recover, but I've been running it down to the point where it says 'battery depleted', and it refuses to do anything. And not by using video or LV, either, since I know that requires a lot more juice.

The thing is, such battery conditioning as you describe shouldn't be necessary.

Hmm. In which case Chris, to be entirely honest I'd be thinking about a trip to SRS to exchange it- I know you got it fairly recently? It sounds to me like the battery life you're experiencing is considerably worse than I've had on my K-R, and is certainly well below where it ought be for the K-5.

If it's too late to exchange, and it's a question of waiting for a repair, then I'd probably just buy a couple of spare batteries and make sure I always had one to hand, as I wouldn't want to be without my camera!

Although this might be worth a try, Li-ion batteries are not supposed to have a 'memory' effect so charging when not fully discharged should not make any difference.

One other thought is if when your battery is showing drained, have you tried switching off then back on 10 minutes later? Sometimes the battery can appear to be discharged after an intense burst of activity, but will 'rebalance' itself after a rest.