Pentax K-5 time/date memory

Hi, can anyone help with this. Haven't used camera for a while and the time/date memory has gone. I seemed to remember reading somewhere that there is a rechargeable onboard battery. Do you have to leave the camera battery in the camera to recharge this or must you have the camera switched on as well?

regards
Rick

As far as I know it's battery in but no need for the camera to be switched on. That assumes the internal battery is OK. I had a Fuji X-T3 one fail recently, it had to go back for a new mother board as the "battery" was built in.

There's a tiny battery (cmos) on the camera's motherboard similar to a watch battery that remembers the time when the main battery is removed (or becomes flat). Unfortunately over time these cmos batteries deteriorate and fail to hold charge, so the time/date is lost.

Sometimes if you're lucky you can quickly swap the main battery (if you have a second one) without losing the date/time.

Think this pretty much happens to most cameras that are over 10 years old, I've had it happen to a K-01 I had, which is essentially K-5 inside. Also I have a digital Leica that's over 10 years old, and that's the same, so not just Pentax cameras.

Thanks for the advice. Bit of a pain having to set date every time but not a massive problem! Bought it new 12 years ago, so its lasted pretty well.

I found with the Fuji the real pain was losing the custom settings of buttons etc.

Yep it's annoying for sure, so much so I don't bother filling out the date/time and sacrificing the exif record.

Fortunately some other settings must be stored within internal memory, so it's not like starting again with your preferred settings, just the time and date is lost.

Is it the cmos battery running out of recharge cycles, or the time span, that causes the failure?

Not sure which too be honest, but one thing that would have been nice is the ability to swap the battery from the base of the camera, rather than having to dismantle it to get to them, especially with (digital) cameras that are over 10+ years old still being more than usable.

According to the guy in the shop, when I took the Fuji back, you could do that with some of the older Canon's. A separate pull out in the battery bay. But you can not escape progress

Yep, definitely a step backward

I hadn't thought about that. how come all your camera settings are saved but not the time/date?

I guess just like a watch power is needed to keep it digitally ticking so-to-speak, where as the other settings can be hard written to internal memory, much like saving a config file.

The Pentax *istD had a 2016 replaceable battery which I guess kept the clock going, don't think any Pentax digital since then has this feature.

You just beat me to it Rob. I turned my *istD over to look, scrolled down and there was your post! I have two *istDs and both required new batteries when I acquired them. The other channel has just started a celebratory thread for *istD photos so if you use one, go and add to it, particularly since they have no idea how many units are still being used.