Another LX5 Battery Quest

I've just received my new LX5. In just an evening, reading the operating manual and trying out the camera, I used up all the "juice" in the battery. Boy, if it runs down that quick, I definitely need a spare battery. But reading all the threads leaves me confused as to the best one to purchase. I could care less about the LCD automatically turning off or the camera going into sleep mode, so that's not an issue. But knowing when the battery is low is definitely an issue for me. So what's a new owner to purchase? Where to buy?

Personally I don't think it's worth it to save a few bucks. If you need a battery NOW get a Panasonic off of amazon or B&H, etc. They're all about $50. Or live with recharging for a while and wait for the price to come down probably after Christmas.

I'm still just messing with the camera and don't plan on taking it on a trip or anywhere in the near future where the extra battery would really be an issue. I'll wait until after Christmas to see if the prices do actually come down. Thanks for your response.

Any others?

i see cheapo's on ebay for the lx5. http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-DMW-BCJ13-battery-panasonic-DMW-BCJ13-DMC-LX5-/160500065416?pt=Batteries_Chargers&hash=item255e8ca488

is there an issue i dont know about?

Did you fully charge the battery before using it or use it straight out of the box?

--After getting my new LX5, playing with it for a week, and deciding to keep it, I watched battery prices for another week or so. $49.95 with free shipping and I'm done with it. Well under $500 with camera, extra battery and belt pouch. Now I can go on with life! Thankfully advancing age is painfully teaching me to be (a little) less anal. I'll enjoy the OEM functionality long after I've forgotten the few extra dollars.
Amateur

Sorry if this has been covered in previous posts (I've been away), but I've purchased two of these batteries from China as back-up for my main Panny one. They seem to work fine, but don't show the battery life bar, so basically just run out (although I don't see this as too big an issue).

Incidentally, I get excellent battery life from the original one, so wonder (as a previous poster) if the battery had been charged properly when the camera was first opened?

this kind of battery is shipped with a little dab of charge, but not fully charged. which i suspect you didn't do before playing with it. a full charge lasts a pretty long time on an lx5. of course, a spare is always good to have -- one of the rules of photography is that UFOs appear over your house, and elvis knocks on your door, only when the battery is dead and just now put in the charger . . .
--
depscribe
some pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/depscribe/collections/

i see cheapo's on ebay for the lx5. http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-DMW-BCJ13-battery-panasonic-DMW-BCJ13-DMC-LX5-/160500065416?pt=Batteries_Chargers&hash=item255e8ca488

is there an issue i dont know about?

Did you charge it initially? The included battery only comes with a partial charge.

I doubt I could run the battery flat in a day of heavy shooting. I got a spare battery just in case the battery fails for some reason.

win39 said:

Did you charge it initially? The included battery only comes with a partial charge.

I doubt I could run the battery flat in a day of heavy shooting. I got a spare battery just in case the battery fails for some reason.

Click to expand...

Re: my last post

I found OEM Panasonic battery for $33.95 at Video Direct Distributors in Ft. Lauderdale.

Shipping was high but then I live clear across the country! Order an lens adapter LA6 it was only $23.95.

Also, remember that Lith-Ion chemistry relies upon a few charge / discharge cycles to really begin to hold a better longer charge. It will synch up to a much longer charge as you run it out and re-charge.
Bruce

I am gonging to buy a extra battery and a battery solar charger, then show the battery life bar or not isn't a issue from now on. Most importantly, I was told the solar battery charger can extend our battery life and it is a portable back-up power at the same time.

It is the article which inspired me to choose a solar battery charger, it sounds like a new and creative method to charge my battery, hope it really works.

http://www.articlesbase.com/technology-articles/solar-battery-charger-review-3598871.htm

Your link doesn't work.

This is fairly normal for a new camera and new battery. The camera has a internal battery that is charged by the removable battery. The removable battery will get stronger as you charge it over and over up to a certain point. Give it a few days and charges to fully charge the internal battery then you will find the removable battery lasts a long time, many shots.

Have fun, the LX5 is a great camera for a P&S.

Chris Christenberry said:

Your link doesn't work.

Click to expand...

Yeah, those links get deleted frequently.

A spamming scammer (scamming spammer?) Sabrina "Lily" Lee (that's one alias, the real name is unknown), a particularly vile con artist with "Solar Charger Pro", posts horrible fake reviews and articles to every site that can accept HTML that looks like an article. Then, they spam hundreds of other sites where you can't post an "article style" post (like dpReview) with links to the article style posts.

On dpReview, the spammer uses the accounts Hordward, Sabrinalee107, Jack001,
Micco01, among others.

Avoid anything that person recommends.

Huan37 here seems a little vulnerable to being taken in by the scammer, she's posted 3 or 4 links to "Lilly's" articles.

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

huan37 said:

I am gonging to buy a extra battery and a battery solar charger, then show the battery life bar or not isn't a issue from now on. Most importantly, I was told the solar battery charger can extend our battery life and it is a portable back-up power at the same time.

Click to expand...

Be really careful, huan.

Solar chargers, in general, are bad for batteries. They're typically underpowered, and constantly drop below the current that the charger's control system needs to properly monitor battery charging, so they do a very poor charge, especially on rechargeable lithiums. The very large, roll up units are better, but the ones on that site you linked are very hard on batteries. They don't "extend" battery life, they shorten it, sometimes very greatly.

huan37 said:

It is the article which inspired me to choose a solar battery charger, it sounds like a new and creative method to charge my battery, hope it really works.

http://www.articlesbase.com/technology-articles/solar-battery-charger-review-3598871.htm

Click to expand...

That article is a scam, be very, very careful. It was posted by a reprehensible criminal, a vile little person who often calls herself Sabrina Lee or Lily Lee. The charger "she" recommends is totally inadequate for camera batteries. At best, it can charge phones or ipods.

If you're actually interested in solar chargers, I can send you some legitimate links, but be forewarned, they're very expensive (ones that actually work for a DSLR battery run $200-400) and awkward to use. They're really such a specialized thing that unless you're doing long travels away from power, they're usually not a good idea. They work best in situations where you can establish a "base camp", set up a solar charger and have one battery charging while you're out shooting on another battery. A charger that won't hurt batteries and is big enough to charge SLR batteries (the spammer charger is only big enough for cell phones or ipods) will set you back about $200. The average user would be much better off spending that $200 on 8 spare batteries, charging them all fully before the trip and whenever they're at a stable source of power.

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

Chris Christenberry said:

I've just received my new LX5. In just an evening, reading the operating manual and trying out the camera, I used up all the "juice" in the battery. Boy, if it runs down that quick, I definitely need a spare battery. But reading all the threads leaves me confused as to the best one to purchase. I could care less about the LCD automatically turning off or the camera going into sleep mode, so that's not an issue. But knowing when the battery is low is definitely an issue for me. So what's a new owner to purchase? Where to buy?

Click to expand...

As I live in the UK I cannot advise you on where to buy in the US, but in general I think it worth saying that there are probably 3 types of replacement/spare batteries available for all the recent Panasonic cameras including the LX5.

• 1. genuine Panasonic branded oem (original equipment manufacturer) batteries.

• 2. fully licensed batteries using recognition and feedback chips from Panasonic.

• 3. reverse engineered cheap clones.

1. are the most reliable and will give you feedback on the battery status on the camera's displays.

2. In my experience are equally reliable and will also give you the display feedback.

3. Are probably the least reliable and will not give you feedback on the battery status. Of course the prices go as 1> 2> 3.

Here in the UK I have usually purchased Hahnel branded spare batteries (for G1, TZ7 and GF1). These come into category 2. The only way to find out which battery is in which category in your country is to ask a reputable and reliable photographic dealer.

A lot of people have thrown their toys out of their pram when it comes to this issue of 'chipped' batteries, so I hope this clarifies things somewhat.

Hey Chris. I got my OEM spare at B&H.

You can alo try here:
http://www.jr.com/panasonic/pe/PAN_DMWBCJ13/

$10 cheaper:

http://www.videodirect.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=DMWBCJ13&Category_Code=DIGCPWRACC
--
Dez

http://dezsantana.com

I'd be wary of Video Direct. For one thing, the only shipping they offer is UPS Ground, for which they charge a ridiculous $11.25 to ship a tiny battery.

J&R offers free shipping right now which makes it the cheapest option!

On resellerratings.com VideoDirect got a few decent consumer reviews lately, but overall it got a lousy lifetime rating of 5.7 out of 10.0, while all stores got an average rating of 8.49.

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Video_Direct_Distributors

By contrast, B&H gets a rating of 9.81 and J&R gets an 8.52 (I think they're better than that, FYI).

$50 seems a bit too pricey for that battery in my opinion, but if you need one then don't hunt for a bargain that might not actually be one.