Sony A7 III NP FZ-100 Battery life

[RColors]

Hi to all

 

, I am new on your forum. I did a little research but could not get the results I wanted to see. I have a question for the Sony A7 III users about battery life of the original Sony NP FZ100. Particular for the still photography. Maximum shoots that did you achieved with the camera? And also is out there replacement but good alternative for the NP FZ100 battery and external charger?   

thank you

[OpenWater]

YMMV, but I have never needed to change the battery during the course of a day's shoot.  On the other hand, I am not a wedding or sports photographer. I have been using the Watson charger from B&H with good results, but use only the Sony NP FZ100 batteries. No problems with them.

[LiveShots]

Over 4000 photos on a single battery with the a9. Most on the HI fps. I only use genuine Sony batteries and charger.

[Iansky]

Wow LiveShots that is amazing and I assume that is shooting JPEG?  I tend to find that I get around 1000 Raw images on my A9 when mostly using the 100-400 Gmaster + 1.4 TC and with very little chimping and I am very happy with that.

I also only use genuine Sony batteries.

[Chrissie]

I'm also on an a9 and genuine Sony batteries, but have never shot anything near 1000 images on the same day. Hence did never have to swap batteries during a day. So I can't contribute on that matter.

Commenting on the differences between @Iansky 's and @LiveShots 's reports, I would assume that moving lots of glass like in focussing a big tele lens drains the battery apparently much faster than shooting "Hi fps" without re-focussing in between. In addition, frequently shutting down and rebooting the camera like I expect is more prevalent in @Iansky 's usage profile puts also more load on the battery (without necessarily increasing the shot count, btw.), compared to having few boot-shutdown cycles and shooting many frames in "Hi fps" mode.

So it's really not that easy, to do a meaningful comparison. Too many unknowns involved, imo.

[LiveShots]

Shooting RAW; For shooting events I typically have the camera mounted on a tripod and operating via a PocketWizard remote (Plus III). I have the camera setup to auto sleep after a minute, a half press on the remote wakes it up. 

For comparison, I attended an Air Show this past weekend, lots of switching the camera off and on between acts and a lot of re-focus etc. and drained one battery after 2500 shots. I was the using the battery grip this time and one battery is completely empty and the other at 100% after six hours of shooting off and on.

Edited July 31, 2019 by LiveShots

[Bokehbobo]

I use an a7rIII, sometimes with battery grip, only Sony z100 batteries and I agree with any and all of the above. In addition you can decrease battery if the monitor brightness is regularly set at brighter settings. I regularly get 1,000 to 1,200 shots per battery per charge.

I use 3 Z100's in rotation with both the original Sony charger and a Watson dual chargers. Is there a difference in long term battery life when using a charger other than Sony's?  

[Toby97]

Hi

i only get around 350-400 shots on my A7iii, although I do use the monitor to change menus quite a lot and use play back to review some photos.

Have turned off everything that I can think of to minimise battery drain including putting camera on airplane mode.

l am a little disappointed and any advice would be appreciated 

Thanks

 

[Chrissie]

2 hours ago, Toby97 said:

and use play back to review some photos

Brightness of the screen comes to my mind. And of course the cumulated length of time, during which you "review some photos".

Turning off unused functions always helps. OTOH, it doesn' make sense crippling an expensive camera like yours by throttling functions you do use on a regular basis. Maybe a second (or even third) battery would give you more value, at your current pattern of usage.

[Lescatalpas]

2 hours ago, Toby97 said:

Hi

i only get around 350-400 shots on my A7iii, although I do use the monitor to change menus quite a lot and use play back to review some photos.

Have turned off everything that I can think of to minimise battery drain including putting camera on airplane mode.

l am a little disappointed and any advice would be appreciated 

Thanks

 

I guess you can drain the battery by reviewing photos without shooting a single picture. (According to what I read, the evf uses more juice than the monitor. ) There are too many unknown variables to say if 350-400 is disappointing. Not only the amount of reviewing, but temperature, age of the battery etc. play a role. 

[Lescatalpas]

My experience with this battery in an A7r3 is rather good. When I am in a hide out to shoot birds, the camera is on continuous for about 5-6 hours. Over that period I may have shot 600-800 photos, all on a single battery. At the end of the session the battery is near empty. When the camera was new ( and so was the battery) the battery was not empty at the end of the session. The batteries ( I have 2) are now 20 months old and I would estimate they have now 75-80% of their original capacity. 

[WB5AGF]

(background)

- I'd prefer not to start a new topic to pass-along information if an existing topic is suitable.

- I try and take care of things and get as much life out of them as possible - some battery chemistries have very specific likes-and-dislikes as regards their minimum-level-of-charge.

-------------------------------------

I was unsure to what level-of-charge (for maximum life) it was prudent to allow the Sony NP-FZ100 Battery (used in my Sony α7 III Camera) to get to before recharging so I had a 'chat session' with Sony this morning. I was told to recharge the NP-FZ100 Battery once its level-of-charge reached 5 percent. The Sony person emphasized (twice) to leave the battery on the charger for four hours.

- Paul