fz5 - battery life

good evening!

i want to buy either panasonic fz5 or canon s2, and next to image quality, battery life is very important for me.

I've read that with panasonic li-ion akku around 300 shots are possible (vs. 500 shots with canon s2), but i'm wondering how long the battery will last (if not used) after it has been charged?

background information: I'm wondering if it is possible to use the camera at a 2-week-trip without power supply, if i take 3 full batteries with me.

hope someone can help me

thx

one gets LOTS of use, the other tends to sit more. The one that sits does not seem to lose much power while sitting. I can easily, however, use a battery in a day of shooting, so I wonder how you will make three batteries last two weeks.

I don't know what kind of transportation you will have but if you have a vehicle with a cigarette lighter, you could use one of these to re-charge your batteries:
http://www.dcacpowerinverters.com/index.html
--
Theresa Kelly
Constructive criticism always welcome!
http://www.pbase.com/theresa_k
http://theresak.smugmug.com/
Panasonic FZ-2O, Oly FL-4O, PSP Nine, bunches of glass

thanks for your post

hmm... I don't know if three batteries are enough for 3 weeks if i don't have any possibility of recharging it (no car, unfortunately). I was only interested if this battery loses a lot of power if it is not used ...

but if one battery is good enough for one day, i think I'll have to take a camera that uses nimh-batteries

surfinia said:

I was only interested if this battery loses a lot
of power if it is not used ...

but if one battery is good enough for one day, i think I'll have to
take a camera that uses nimh-batteries

Click to expand...

nimh is the worst for storage - they self-discharge very quickly. they're NOT a good standby battery. you need to use them shortly after their last full charge.

--
bryan, http://www.grateful.net , http://www.flickr.com/photos/linux-works

It's possible...but it all depends on how much photography you plan on doing. If you're going to be shooting a couple of hundred shots a day, reviewing the pictures on the LCD screen, and otherwise doing other power-hungry functions, you'll be lucky to get 3 or 4 days. If you use the EVF exclusively, minimize zooming and prefocusing, and limit your shooting to well-planned, "special moment" shots, you might be able to squeak by.
--

• Larry

'To the complaint, 'There are no people in these photographs,' I respond, 'There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.' - Ansel Adams



http://www.pbase.com/snargle/

yes, but I meant I can buy normale aa batteries if my nimh batteries lost all its power ... but with the panasonic fz5, that wouldn't be possible

fz5 or s2 ... a difficult decision

I don´t think anyone should waste their time on you. If you truly wanted an answer, you would give us an idea of how you take pctures.
Give more info instead of wasting our time.
Don´t force us to get the info out of you.

Guy Moscoso

Come tomorrow I will have had my FZ5 for 1 week. I just got done charging my battery for the third time since it's initial charge. I have taken about 500 shots, I think the last time I looked at the file number it was up around 487.

Now you might think that those are not good numbers but keep in mind that all three times that I did charge my battery my indicator showed I still had battery life left with 1 out of 3 bars showing. It was just that since I only have the one battery right now I knew I was going out and taking a lot of pictures so I would charge the battery to full charge before I left.

I went to a baseball game and took about 175 photos with the LCD display being used a lot and according to the battery indicator still had 2 bars left on the indicator when I was done, it might have been on the verge of changing to one bar maybe, but still.

Like I said, I have only had my camera for less than a week so I am using the LCD display alot right now because of the learning curve. Also I use the battery's power when I am downloading the photos to the computer right now and that takes up some also.

Now to answer your question whether or not 3 fully charged batteries will last for 2-3 weeks? I would have to say no unless you don't plan on using your camera a lot. If you are not going out of the country why not bring your charger with you? The charger for the FZ5 is just a small thing and would pack very nicely. Also, I used a dc-ac converter with the cigerette lighter in my truck to charge my battery initially since I had a 2 hour drive back home after picking up my camera and when I got home I had a fully charged battery. So that is an option too, the small converters cost very little.

I know I rattled on here but hope this helped somewhat.

thanks a lot, that was the information I wanted to here

yes it would be the best, if i take the charger with me ... but the problem is, that i won't have the possibility of power supply (for example when camping)

sorry if anyone of you felt that I'm wasting your time - my english is not so good, that's why it's difficult to formulate my "problem"

but now, I know what I just wanted to know
thx

Yep, you're right that AA batteries are more easily replacable. Just pop into any shop and you can buy them.

On the other hand, I get really annoyed with AAs some times - like for my flashgun, which takes 4 of them. Half way into a photo shoot, they run out of juice, and I end up scrambling to swap them with a spare set. Just takes too long. And in the dark (e.g. shooting at a jazz club), I usually end up dropping one and being unable to find it. Since I use rechargables, I want them back!

I often wish that my flashgun can take battery packs like the camera.

--
View my photo library at:
http://www.vizero.com/php/photographer.php?id=1

Surfinia,your English is wonderful. It is so wonderful that it sounds like you are a native speaker. That´s why I get annoyed/impatient.

Now I know that you are being cautious because it is your second language (or 3rd or maybe 4th).

Please explain as much as you can and that helps us to to help you.

You will be surprised how little time AA batteries last. The non rechargeable ones don´t last long in any camera.

But you said NIMH batteries. That means that you have a charger for them. Right? will you be able to get electricity to recharge your NIMH batteries?

Guy Moscoso

(My name could be translated to "Full of flies" in Spanish... but, really,... I´m not)

surfinia said:

thanks a lot, that was the information I wanted to here

yes it would be the best, if i take the charger with me ... but the
problem is, that i won't have the possibility of power supply (for
example when camping)

sorry if anyone of you felt that I'm wasting your time - my english
is not so good, that's why it's difficult to formulate my "problem"

but now, I know what I just wanted to know
thx

Click to expand...

hi again!

thanks for this compliment, but I do know that my English should be improved And that's why I'm going to Australia ... and that's why I want to buy a new camera that makes excellenct images. And so I have to decide between the panasonic fz5 and the canon is2.

Since I will spend some time in the outback with no electricity (camp sites), battery life of the camera is a very important factor (next to image quality - I think in this case, the fz5 is the better one)

So if i'll take the fz5, I have to rely on the power of the proprietary batteries I have with me (that's why I assumed to take more than one, lets say 3 batteries, with me) ... but if they loose power even if they are not in use, it doesn't make sense ... so it would be the better solution to take the canon s2, because there I have the possibility of using AA batteries. Yes, I know that I can't take a lot of pictures with this sort of batteries - but at least I can't take pictures at all g

so, I hope that I've now explained everything that is necessary

gmosc said:

(My name could be translated to "Full of flies" in Spanish... but,
really,... I´m not)

Click to expand...

gg nice translation, thank you! so you are from spain? I'm from Austria ... so English is my 2nd language.

My name is Spanish, I´m American, but I live in Denmark (after having lived in Japan.) Is that clear? Nice to meet you.

Guy

Unless you are shooting in cold weather, the batteries will only discharge slightly. I have a backup battery I have not used for two weeks. I went to use it and it was a full charge. I got at least 300 shots out of it.
--
http://www.pbase.com/pontiac005
-------------------------------------------------
Marcus D.
FZ5+Nikon4T+Enthusiasm

pontiac005 said:

Unless you are shooting in cold weather, the batteries will only
discharge slightly. I have a backup battery I have not used for two
weeks. I went to use it and it was a full charge. I got at least
300 shots out of it.

Click to expand...

that are quite good news! thanks for this experience.

gmosc said:

My name is Spanish, I´m American, but I live in Denmark (after
having lived in Japan.) Is that clear? Nice to meet you.

Guy

Click to expand...

yes, everything clear now! nice to meet you too! and thanks for your posts!

n/t

LI-ion battery's self-discharge at a MUCH slower rate than NiMH. For example, if you fully charge one of the Panasonic FZ5 batteries and don't use it for two weeks it will still have almost all of its charge. I'm guessing here, but NiMH will probably lose 30-40% during that time.

So as far as having fully charged batteries on hand away from a power source, LI-ion would be the best way to go.

So if you use LI-ion, your problem is not storage of fully charged batteries, it's how to re-charge them if you use them all up.

The FZ5 has a standard DC input jack. If you made a battery pack with the appropriate connector you could use that as a source of power.

Now, what I don't know, and the manual doesn't address this, is whether a power supply connected to the FZ5 in this way will actually charge the internal battery or bypass it and power the camera directly. If it charges, a battery pack of 6 AA batteries should be able to charge the LI-ion at least 2 times. If it doesn't charge, you can still use it as an emergency supply if you use up the LI-ions.

This seems like the best way to go. If you use the S2, you'll either have to carry a lot of NiMH's to compensate for the self-discharge rate, or even more alkalines to compensate for the shorter life of alkalines.

Either way, you'll have some extra batteries to carry. It seems you'd have less to carry using the FZ5 setup (and it weighs less than the S2 so you can carry more batteries for the same weight)

I just got an FZ5 and have been very pleased with the battery life. I got it to take into the mountains and backpacking. On a recent trip I left the charger behind - I was talking lots of pictures and doing slideshows on the TV for relatives. The battery lasted (barely) till I got home and ordered a new charger. I had been planning to have an extra battery or two and was so pleased w/ the performance I only got 1 extra for now. I'll be in Canada for 2 weeks camping but I think 2 will be plenty.

My UZI used AAs and they discharged constantly. I repaced it for power issues as well as weight.

-Carolyn
--
FZ5 for mountain climbing. 2100UZ great but too heavy.