So, I've been wondering what's the actual difference in battery life in the latest gen (A7SIII, A1, AIV, A7RV) vs last gen (A7RIII, A7III, A9, A9II, A7RIV). I did notice some increase in battery usage on A1 vs AIII, but I put it down to bigger EVF, more power-hungry processing pipeline, etc. Reports vary across users though.
It came to my mind recenly, that interval shooting allows for a simple test when the main limitation is how much power the camera consumes just by being "on". I used the maximum interval - 60 sec and LCD turned off to allow EVF sensor to shut it down also for most of the time (as I'm only checking the view 2-3x for the full duration).
on a fully charged (but 2y old) battery I got about 172 shots in 2h 52m before the battery died. It got pretty sunny in the end and the camera took some heat, so indoors it could probably be a bit better.
I think this is more or less in line with my typical "take the camera and go" usage, where it takes > 4h to deplete the battery (the camera is sleeping for some of that time and the shoots happen in bursts, rather than spread out evenly, but there's some chimping on LCD/EVF as well).
Did anyone try such a test to see how long the camera can keep on running and taking pictures?
I'd be very interested to compare the results to A7III or A9 or A7RIV for example, as my impression is that those bodies managed to keep the camera running a bit longer on the same battery.
j4nu wrote:
on a fully charged (but 2y old) battery I got about 172 shots in 2h 52m before the battery died.
Wow, that's not much! I've never used "interval shooting," so I only have real-world experience to go by, but I have on several occasions shot nearly 1,000 uncompressed raw images on my A7iii in one go with the battery barely going down below 50 percent, with the caveat that I'm using manual lenses, adapted (no native e-mount). My SD card filled up (I did have a spare, but had shot enough photos) but the battery was nowhere near empty. My batteries are 2-3 years old.
A few weekends ago I shot 650 photos and the battery went down from fully charged to about 80 percent
The one thing I've noticed about those batteries is that they lose juice over time even when outside the camera. I have to charge up my spare battery before every big shoot so I'm sure to have a fully charged spare if I need one.
bjhurley wrote:
Wow, that's not much! I've never used "interval shooting," but I have on several occasions shot nearly 1,000 uncompressed raw images on my A7iii in one go with the battery barely going down below 50 percent, with the caveat that I'm using manual lenses, adapted (no native e-mount). My SD card filled up (I did have a spare, but had shot enough photos) but the battery was nowhere near empty. My batteries are 2-3 years old.
A few weekends ago I shot 650 photos and the battery went down from fully charged to about 80 percent
The one thing I've noticed about those batteries is that they lose juice over time even when outside the camera. I have to charge up my spare battery before every big shoot so I'm sure to have a fully charged spare if I need one.
Yeah, but it's kinda difficult to compare because everyone shoots differently. My typical use case is just walking around with the camera looking for something interesting. These means that the camera is most of the time working as I'm looking through EVF or LCD, but I don't take that many pictures in that time so my FPS is rather low . This test is nice in that way as I think it's a similar use case.
Back when I was using A7III, I'd shoot 700-800 pictures on one battery AFAIR. I'd have to try really hard to use up full battery, with 2 being nigh impossible. On A1, I go through 2 batteries on most (nearly all) of my "family trip days"...
Yeah, I leave the camera off most of the time until I see something worth shooting; it turns on fast enough that it's never been an issue for me. But when I'm shooting concerts or events I may have the camera mostly on for 2-3 hours and shoot 600-1,000 photos and my battery has never gone much below 50 percent if even that. I've never actually gone through a battery; I've had my A7iii for three years and have yet to need to use my spare battery but I'm sure I eventually will.
bjhurley wrote:
Yeah, I leave the camera off most of the time until I see something worth shooting; it turns on fast enough that it's never been an issue for me. But when I'm shooting concerts or events I may have the camera mostly on for 2-3 hours and shoot 600-1,000 photos and my battery has never gone much below 50 percent if even that. I've never actually gone through a battery; I've had my A7iii for three years and have yet to need to use my spare battery but I'm sure I eventually will.
Wow, you have a lot better throughput then me. I don't remember ever reaching 1k photos on A7III on a single battery...
j4nu wrote:
Wow, you have a lot better throughput then me. I don't remember ever reaching 1k photos on A7III on a single battery...
I suspect the fact that I don't have any autofocus lenses and only use all-manual adapted lenses (no data transfer between lens and camera) has something to do with it. I also have an original A7s and heard many complaints about the short battery life on that camera, but in my use case it has been totally acceptable, even in winter. It definitely runs down faster than my A7iii, but I've done 2-hour concert shoots with the A7s, maybe 350-400 shots, and the battery didn't get below 50%).
I primarily shoot through the EVF, but I "chimp" a lot: to me, the ability to check what I've shot is one of the main advantages of using a digital camera; it allows me to make course corrections I never could make when shooting film or if I avoided reviewing my shots on digital.
bjhurley wrote:
I suspect the fact that I don't have any autofocus lenses and only use all-manual adapted lenses (no data transfer between lens and camera) has something to do with it. I also have an original A7s and heard many complaints about the short battery life on that camera, but in my use case it has been totally acceptable, even in winter. It definitely runs down faster than my A7iii, but I've done 2-hour concert shoots with the A7s, maybe 350-400 shots, and the battery didn't get below 50%).
I primarily shoot through the EVF, but I "chimp" a lot: to me, the ability to check what I've shot is one of the main advantages of using a digital camera; it allows me to make course corrections I never could make when shooting film or if I avoided reviewing my shots on digital.
j4nu wrote:
Any chance you could leave your camera with interval shooting on when you're not using it to see how many shots it will take ?
I don't see any option for Interval Shooting in the A7iii, unfortunately. I went to the drive mode in the menu and it's not there. Maybe this only exists in the A1?
bjhurley wrote:
I don't see any option for Interval Shooting in the A7iii, unfortunately. I went to the drive mode in the menu and it's not there. Maybe this only exists in the A1?
. This test is nice in that way as I think it's a similar use case.