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RX100 V Battery Issue—Solutions?

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KevenP

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I'm thinking of buying a RX100 V for my upcoming trip. I'll be using it for both photography and video (equally important).
  1. How long does a fully-charged RX100 V battery last when shooting video at 1080p 30fps and/or 60fps?
  2. Secondly, why is there no battery grip for the RX100 V? You could easily have 2 batteries in the grip and possibly a 3rd one in the camera, depending on if a cable is used or the grip is in the battery compartment.
  3. Would an external battery setup be possible?
  4. For the 220 total shots per battery, is this calculated by taking 220 in the span of 30 minutes (i.e., shoot-and-pray), or according to a photographer who actually takes the time to compose his shots?
  5. What good options are there for the RX100 V?
 
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Lol - a battery grip for a pocket camera? I shoot a lot of video in 4k and can you tell you the batteries drain fast. Usually shooting video off and on for 30 minutes and I'm out of juice. I always keep an extra battery charged up.

Please keep in mind you are limited to how long you can shoot 4k before it starts to overheat. This has happened to me several times. I just set it aside and let it cool down and swap out a new battery.

If you are going to be using it a lot I would get a couple extra batteries.

I have been using my Sony RX100V with a Zhiyun Crane Gimbal and am blown away by the image quality in 4k.

Good luck
 
LarryB2 said:
Lol - a battery grip for a pocket camera? I shoot a lot of video in 4k and can you tell you the batteries drain fast. Usually shooting video off and on for 30 minutes and I'm out of juice. I always keep an extra battery charged up.

Please keep in mind you are limited to how long you can shoot 4k before it starts to overheat. This has happened to me several times. I just set it aside and let it cool down and swap out a new battery.

If you are going to be using it a lot I would get a couple extra batteries.

I have been using my Sony RX100V with a Zhiyun Crane Gimbal and am blown away by the image quality in 4k.

Good luck
Click to expand...
Hi Larry, thanks for the input.

Well, if it would be possible to have a battery grip with a total of 3 batteries (even 2), it would be so much better than swapping batteries every 30 minutes—and especially worrying during all that time if you still have battery power left for what you want to shoot.

The small hassle of having to carry around a detachable battery pack would be worth it. I find this to be the biggest downside for this camera at the moment.

How many times has overheating happened relative to how much 4K shooting you have done with the RX100 V so far?
 
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Outside temp right now is around mid 80s and pretty humid. I usually shoot a couple minute clips at a time. If I do that for up to 15 minutes I will get the warning on the screen which when I see that I will shut it down for 10 minutes. But after a 15 minute session my battery will be drained.

Check out Brandon Li on Youtube. He has an external battery pack which he uses with a Zhiyun Crane gimbal and his RX100V. He mounts the battery pack on the gimbal and then uses a cable to attach to the camera. Pretty neat idea. I'm going to try the same setup with my gimbal.

If you are looking to do a lot of video it may be worth it to step up to the A6500 as battery life should be longer than the RX100V.
 
Yeah, I was about to buy the A6500, but then thought about the RX100 V. The A6500 would result in higher quality of everything, but to get decent quality glass, it would result in costing 4x more—as well as having the drawback of having to carry around a medium-sized body with a huge lens (or multiple lenses), versus a tiny 27-70mm equivalent RX100 V you can carry with you all the time (and 4x less expensive).

Cheers.
 
Bought a RX100V a couple of months ago. First camera I've ever had that did not come with a battery charger. Looked for the Sony charger plus battery kit. All Sony shops in Manila did not have spare batteries in stock. Found them at a kiosk (in a mall) that specialized in batteries (mobile phones, laptop, cameras). Grabbed 2 units immediately. How do I recharge? I've had for a couple of years now (bought it at a BestBuy in California) a Digipower ReFuel, universal charger. Great for travel, and it works with the Sony batteries. Disappointed at first, thought it wasn't working with Sony. But occurred to me to switch the battery around (the other side of the Sony label should be exposed. That did it. Works great. And didn't have to look for a Sony charger. This charger takes care of my Fuji XE1 and XT1 batteries also.
 
Recently purchased the RX100 V. Very happy with this camera. Ok, battery life could be better but there are easy, cost effective solutions as detailed below.

Bought this dual usb charger that came with 2 batteries for £12.99! Small, neat and versatile being usb. So far I consider both battery and charger to be of good quality and a absolute bargain for the price paid.

Loading…

www.amazon.co.uk

Regards,

Mark.
 
KevenP said:
Would an external battery setup be possible?
Click to expand...
Yes - and this is the genius of using a USB connector to power/charge the battery. Just get an external USB "power pack" and plug it into the camera's USB port. As long as the power back can supply more than 1A of current it can run the camera. And you can get power packs of up to 10,000mAh which will run the camera for quite a long time. This is great for things like time lapse work where the camera has to be turned on a lot longer than the battery alone would allow.

The larger limitation when shooting video is that the camera can overheat and shut down on you well before you run out of power.
 
Sean Nelson said:
KevenP said:
Would an external battery setup be possible?
Click to expand...
Yes - and this is the genius of using a USB connector to power/charge the battery. Just get an external USB "power pack" and plug it into the camera's USB port. As long as the power back can supply more than 1A of current it can run the camera. And you can get power packs of up to 10,000mAh which will run the camera for quite a long time. This is great for things like time lapse work where the camera has to be turned on a lot longer than the battery alone would allow.

The larger limitation when shooting video is that the camera can overheat and shut down on you well before you run out of power.
Click to expand...
Awesome! I might make myself a battery grip. :)
 
a battery grip for a point-and-shoot, that's an odd concept.

The whole design purpose of these camera's is to provide a compact little camera that can fit in a pocket without the need for extra accessories. (tho I do like the additional grip that Sony sells).

and it's also not quite meant to be a camcorder.

220 photos is the equiv of over 6 rolls of 36 exposure film, so that should be plenty to snap in a single day when you think about it.

The bottom line is that it's just plain simple to purchase additional batteries, which are quite affordable. - so are external chargers.

Yes, it's a bit unusual that the camera doesn't come with a battery charger, but the external chargers are dirt cheap, and being able to charge the battery in-camera using any micro-usb charger is actually a great feature, - you can charge it from a laptop, in the car...etc.
you can't do that with most chargers
 
LarryB2 said:
Outside temp right now is around mid 80s and pretty humid. I usually shoot a couple minute clips at a time. If I do that for up to 15 minutes I will get the warning on the screen which when I see that I will shut it down for 10 minutes. But after a 15 minute session my battery will be drained.

Check out Brandon Li on Youtube. He has an external battery pack which he uses with a Zhiyun Crane gimbal and his RX100V. He mounts the battery pack on the gimbal and then uses a cable to attach to the camera. Pretty neat idea. I'm going to try the same setup with my gimbal.

If you are looking to do a lot of video it may be worth it to step up to the A6500 as battery life should be longer than the RX100V.
Click to expand...
Say in 85F-100F weather. If you put a new battery once the previous one is empty, and you start a new recording once the 5-minute limit has passed, how would 1 hour of continuous shooking in 4K turn out (overheating, how long to let it cool down, have much more to cool down 2nd time, eventually be dangerous for the hardware, etc.)?
 
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Gary3000 said:
a battery grip for a point-and-shoot, that's an odd concept.

The whole design purpose of these camera's is to provide a compact little camera that can fit in a pocket without the need for extra accessories. (tho I do like the additional grip that Sony sells).

and it's also not quite meant to be a camcorder.

[...]
Click to expand...
The RX100 V is a $1000 high-end compact camera with a solid 24-70mm (it's a micro four thirds, but still). To get a similar setup with the a6500, you would have to spend $3600.

Having a battery grip would mean not having to change the battery every 30 minutes—and especially not having to worry if you have enough battery power left (apparently the battery indicator really sucks as well, only displaying 3 bars and not %).
 
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a lot of the heat is the battery itself, keep a few cool spares, so when it gets hot, swap the battery before it overheats,

I wonder why you want to take so much video with a camera with such limited mics, tiny, omni-directional, unwanted sounds, frequency limited, ...
 
KevenP said:
I'm thinking of buying a RX100 V for my upcoming trip. I'll be using it for both photography and video (equally important).
  1. How long does a fully-charged RX100 V battery last when shooting video at 1080p 30fps and/or 60fps?
  2. Secondly, why is there no battery grip for the RX100 V? You could easily have 2 batteries in the grip and possibly a 3rd one in the camera, depending on if a cable is used or the grip is in the battery compartment.
Click to expand...
Probably Sony doesn't offer one because it would make the camera much less compact, the primary reason for buying an RX100, so they must feel they wouldn't sell enough of them to be profitable. I was able to get about an hour of video recording with my RX100 version 1 with room to spare but I don't know about v5.
KevenP said:
  1. Would an external battery setup be possible?
Click to expand...
Yes. I use the following for enough recording time to fill a memory card.

https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Cha...96494384&sr=8-5&keywords=Portable+USB+battery
KevenP said:
  1. For the 220 total shots per battery, is this calculated by taking 220 in the span of 30 minutes (i.e., shoot-and-pray), or according to a photographer who actually takes the time to compose his shots?
Click to expand...
"The Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA) set up in Japan in 2002 succeeded in developing a standardized battery-life test for digital cameras. Under the test scheme, the camera takes a photo every 30 seconds, half of them with flash and the other without. The test zooms the lens in and out all the way before a shot is taken and leaves the screen on. After every 10 shots, the camera is turned off for a while and the cycle is repeated. CIPA ratings replicate a realistic way a consumer would use a camera and most new cameras adopt the CIPA protocol to rate the runtime."

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_rate_battery_runtime

--
Tom
Look at the picture, not the pixels
------------
Misuse of the ability to do 100% pixel peeping is the bane of digital photography.
 
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LarryB2 said:
Lol - a battery grip for a pocket camera? I shoot a lot of video in 4k and can you tell you the batteries drain fast. Usually shooting video off and on for 30 minutes and I'm out of juice. I always keep an extra battery charged up.
Click to expand...
The OP wants to shoot HD not 4K so he would get a lot more recording time than you.
 
elliottnewcomb said:
a lot of the heat is the battery itself, keep a few cool spares, so when it gets hot, swap the battery before it overheats,

I wonder why you want to take so much video with a camera with such limited mics, tiny, omni-directional, unwanted sounds, frequency limited, ...

--
Elliott
Click to expand...
I was opting for an A6500, but with the lenses I need, getting a RX100 V would slice the cost by four (solid integrated 24-70mm equivalent instead of a $3000 24-70mm or $3000+ for 3-4 good lenses) .

It's a travel camera, mainly personal video and images that might or might not end up on YouTube. Being able to cary it around in my pocket would mean taking photos/videos a lot more often. For video I would get a Zoom and shotgun mic.

Thanks for the battery swapping tip!
 
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aerorail said:
its a 'pocket' camera not a professional dslr

carry around a generic battery or 2 for a few bucks
Click to expand...
It's a professional compact camera. Like I previously said, always worrying about if you have enough battery power left is a bane to creativity.
 
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