K5 battery

I am still not convinced that my battery lasts as long as it should on my K5.

Last week I set up CIF on a bird bath. Camera was set to take continious pictures with a IR remote. Camera was switched on for 7 hours and shot about 200 pictures before the camera died. Rear screen was switched off.

sounds pretty good, 7 hours constant monitoring focus points, processing on mini computer, every two minutes, stop down the lens, slap the mirror, write to cache, process, store in cache, write to memory card, run the metering ... anything else? All from a battery less than 2000mAh

You get many many more if you turn off the camera between shots, if you set the power off to a couple of minutes, if you are not on continuous shooting allowing the battery to drain much slower, etc...

I'm amazed it managed 7 hours with it continuously on. I'd say you've got a pretty good battery to manage that.

Were the CIF shots any good? Anything worth posting as I'm sure many would like to see what can be achieved by that method.

John

I went out for a few hours on Sunday to a music Festival. Took both K-5s and shot about 1500 pics on each. I'd forgotten about the batteries. After reading this thread I just went and switch them on and both K-5s are showing full battery ( all bars ). They obviously aren't full, but I normally get least 2,000 shots per battery. Af in constant use and rear screen on preview for 3 seconds.

Impressed, my previous K10 and K20 were never as good

If I go out for the day with a full battery I am lucky to get 250 pics before the indicator turns red. Pentax & other battery.

Ahhh - the greater crested blackbird!

My second battery which i mainly use in the grip lasts a bit less than the other.
But that's because it is transferred from my k7 and is 3years old. Still i am able to take like 1500 pics with two batteries, so no complains I rarely do such amounts in one shooting. When both batteries were fresh and new i did recharge them once for 2 or 3 months. Now i do that more often as i have macro lens and i do a lot of LV focus.

btw what are your settings?
How much seconds before the live review turns off? 3 or 5?
or... what is your 'metering time setting' ? I've noticed when it was set at 10 seconds the camera lasts much more than when set at 30secs.
Btw k5 has very low ''turn on to shot'' lag so after a shot i switch it off if i think that the next shot will be 30secs or more from that time.

I know how frustrating is that battery issue. Back in the days when i had k200 i tried more than 5 sets of new batteries with different chargers and my best number of shots were no more than 150 ... in the summer. In the winter it was like 30. No difference if they were envelops or ni-mh. Only energizer's lasted 800+ shots, but they cost a lot. That was the main reason to sell it even it was an AMAZING camera.

Batteries ,I have a set of Eneloops in my K100 and they work fine maybe 300 shots per charge I have a set of energizers for emergency they are two years old ,they live in the bag and still read fully charged if I stick em in the camera .
When I use my longest lens 80 -320 I use manual focus first then sometimes auto to nail it, that I think saves hunting and therefore battery ...Anyway in some strange way I trust manual focus more than the new fangled auto focus... jeff...