a900 battery life

jira · Jun 15, 2009

Hello,

what is everybody's experience with a900 battery life? OVer the weekend I was shootin for the first time with my new a900 and the battery was exhausted after something over 100 shots, which is nowhere near the advertised 800.

It was in normal conditions with temparetures cca 25C.

Regards,
Jiri

christer hultberg · Jun 15, 2009

When you charge the battery you have to keep it in the charger at least 2 hours after the light goes out, to be sure its 100% charged. (It says on the back of the charger)
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jira · Jun 15, 2009

It was on the charger overnight actually. Maybe that is the problem?

When I put it into the camera it showed 100%, but then went down rather quickly.

Tom Harvey · Jun 15, 2009

jira said:
what is everybody's experience with a900 battery life? OVer the
weekend I was shootin for the first time with my new a900 and the
battery was exhausted after something over 100 shots, which is
nowhere near the advertised 800.

Exhausted as in stopped working, or exhausted as in said it was down to 0%? I believe Infolithium batteries need 'calibration' so that it can identify the point when they are empty. If it does not know then it may indicate 0% charge when it is still half full.

Also, as it is a new battery it may take a few charge/discharge cycles to get it up to full use.

--
Tom

Willy81 · Jun 15, 2009

I shot this wekend with A900 and 70-400mm G and got near one thousand (1000) with one battery.

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jira · Jun 15, 2009

Tom Harvey said:
Exhausted as in stopped working, or exhausted as in said it was down
to 0%?

It was down to 0% after less then 100 shots. I then decided to test how much longer it will work and manage to get few more dozens shots out of it before the battery was completely depleted.

Tom Harvey · Jun 15, 2009

jira said:
It was down to 0% after less then 100 shots. I then decided to test
how much longer it will work and manage to get few more dozens shots
out of it before the battery was completely depleted.

That's not great!

Were you reviewing the shots a lot as you go? That can eat battery power. I would be if I was playing with a new camera

I would try cycling through the charge/discharge sequence a few times before worrying too much.

--
Tom

jira · Jun 15, 2009

Tom Harvey said:
jira said:

It was down to 0% after less then 100 shots. I then decided to test
how much longer it will work and manage to get few more dozens shots
out of it before the battery was completely depleted.

Click to expand...

That's not great!

Were you reviewing the shots a lot as you go? That can eat battery
power. I would be if I was playing with a new camera

I always look at histogram to see if the exposure is good. But no pixel peeping in the field

Tom Harvey said:
I would try cycling through the charge/discharge sequence a few times
before worrying too much.

Yes, I will definitely try.

Generally, I could not find any mention of short battery life problems with a900 except for luminous-ladscape, where the reviewer also had less then stellar experience (cca 200 shots).

xenon2 · Jun 15, 2009

...at least 400 shoots

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lloyd007 · Jun 15, 2009

It all depends on using the LCD. Just taking shots I can probably easily hit 800 shots (never tested down to 0%) but 300 shots and I was down to 75%. The LCD drains about 1% every 20-30 seconds for my camera at least and even after it's off the camera seems to draw more power.

Diversants · Jun 15, 2009

I have on several ocasions dove over 800 shots on single charge with the battery not even reaching 0% - the lovest I have had was 3%. Therefore I happily live with only 1 battery...

Andrejs

jira · Jun 15, 2009

Followup:

I recharged the battery, removing it from charger as soon as the light went off.

Now, after 120 shots with drive set to "continuous Hi" the battery is at 92%.

So that would be good (even though it was with autofocus off and metering set to manual).

Danny Williams · Jun 15, 2009

--The poster who told you that the batteries had to be calibrated is incorrect. These battteries simply need to be charged and discharged several times before they work at full capacity. You will find that they work great after a few times being charged. I use the A900 on a daily basis shooting hundreds of shots on a single charge.

aardvark7 · Jun 15, 2009

As has been mentioned, the LCD sucks out the life of a battery, but another big drain is if you use continuous focus; made worse by fast moving subjects, such as sports. The motor can be running almost full time especially if you get engrossed in the action.

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Get busy living, or get busy dying...

RobertBarnett · Jun 15, 2009

I am approaching 1000 shots on my battery with only a single charge. But, then I turn it off when I don't use it. If auto-power sleep mode on a camera is anything like other electronics it is still sucking a lot of power so I turn mine off.

Robert
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austinnyc · Jun 15, 2009

Also though remember that the "New Lithium" batteries as not suppose to have a memory like the older batteries. I don't have the 900 but the 700 and I have found that yes the LCD is a huge drainer as well as SSM/HSM lenses since there is an extra motor to power. I have also always wondered if shooting RAW would drain the battery more or less since your not using the camera jpg processor but RAW is just so much more data to process.

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Chris G B · Jun 15, 2009

I run two batteries in the vertical grip and shoot RAW, SSS on whenever hand holding, never use the on off switch unless I am putting the camera in the case and do little looking at the LCD (I find the camera very predictable, so do not generally review in the field). Both batteries lasted around 350 shots with this on their first charge. Since then I normally see 400 - 500 shots per battery. I know I could nurse them and get more too.

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