A7R II - Optimizing Battery Life

[KlausH]

First of all, I never experienced that a battery was dead in three days when the camera was not even turned on.

I have no explanation for those cases that were reported.

 

Understanding the energy consumption of the A7R II helps to optimize the settings and to extend the battery life.

Measuring the power consumption under various conditions gave the values below.

The lens used on the camera was a Batis 2/25mm. The lens cap was on for a dark screen and off for a bright screen.

 

Mode/Function                                                                              (mA)

 

Camera off                                                                                      (1.3)

In sleep mode                                                                                 (1.3)

Camera on and finder and monitor off*                                        (241)

Monitor dark or deactivated and LA-EA4 adapter on                   (250)

Image review                                                                                (253)

Finder off, monitor dark or deactivated                                        (295)

Finder dark and monitor off                                                          (295)

+ Airplane Mode off (WiFi and NFC on) and remote control on   (295)

+ Silent Shutter on                                                                       (297)

+ SteadyShot on                                                                          (315)

Monitor bright                                                                               (330)

Finder bright                                                                                 (365)

Finder bright, shutter release half pressed, AF on                       (400)

Finder bright, shutter release half pressed, AF active                 (430)

 

* Deactivating the monitor doesn’t shut it off.

To really shut it off:

Menu -> custom settings (wheel) -> tab 4 -> Finder/Monitor set to “Finder (manually)“.

Now the monitor is really off. 

Only on a A7R II a toggle button can be defined, it doesn't work for any of the other A7 models:

Menu ->  custom settings (wheel) -> tab 7 -> Custom Key Settings -> C4 button set to “Finder/Monitor Select“

The C4 button has now become a toggle that switches between finder and monitor, so either the monitor or the finder or both become powerless.

(You may use a different button as well).

 

Start up times:

 

After a battery change: 4,35 s

Wake up from sleep mode or turning the camera on: 0,9 s.

 

Conclusion:

 

1. Even when the camera is turned off, it drains the battery. The battery is empty after 33 days, even when the camera was not turned on.

It is advisable to remove the battery when the camera will not be used in a longer period of time.

 

2. It makes no difference if the camera is switched off or if it is in sleep mode. Wake up time and battery power consumption are the same.

 

3. Airplane mode (WiFi and NFC off), and/or remote control off have no significant impact on battery life.

 

4. SteadyShot and AF increases the power consumption somewhat when the shutter release is half pressed.

 

5. The AF uses more energy while active. It is not a good idea to turn Pre-AF on, this results in a constant drain of battery power.

 

6. A brighter screen (monitor or finder) uses more energy than a darker one and the finder more than the monitor.

Shutting off the monitor (as described above) helps to save energy.

(When you don’t look through the finder, both, finder and monitor are off).

 

7. Keep “power safe start time“ reasonably short (one minute recommended).

 

8. Just a note: the AF system of the LA-EA4 adapter uses less energy than the internal AF system of the camera.

 

9. Setting auto review to off saves time and power.

 

With optimized settings, one fully charged battery will hold up to 600-800 shots.

I had recently a shooting with 750 images and 15 minutes footage of 4k video. I had to change the battery once and the second had still 51% at the end.

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest all8]

Please note, if you take the battery out the internal battery will eventually discharge and you will loose the date time settings.

 

The difference between Power Off and Sleep Mode makes no sense. I'm not disputing your results ... I have observed similar behaviour, but at the same time I have put a fresh 100% battery in the camera and had it hold its charge for a number of days. IMHO the power management in these cameras is exhibiting curious behaviour.

[brosenz]

On my experience, I've been testing the camera power management for the last 2 to 3 weeks since I got the camera. A fresh brand new battery (with less than 5 cycles) installed in the camera, each 1 or 2 days the battery will drain around 15% - 20%, after about a week the battery will be fully drain to 0%. My only conclusion right now is to store the camera for a long time with no battery. I hope this will get fixed with a FW update.

[Guest all8]

Klaus, did you or are you able to measure the resistance of the camera at the battery terminal when it is switched off? And perhaps the voltage too. In both cases with the battery removed and disconnected, of course.

[KlausH]

Klaus, did you or are you able to measure the resistance of the camera at the battery terminal when it is switched off? And perhaps the voltage too. In both cases with the battery removed and disconnected, of course.

 

 

I can try to do this tomorrow.

 

The values I have posted here are just my ampmeter readings on my camera (A7R II). Yesterday, at 8:00 p.m. my battery had 93% charge. This morning at 9:30 a.m. – 13.5 hours later – it still shows 93%. That really puzzles me, I cannot duplicate the findings that a battery is totally drained in a week or so. Could it be the settings? The battery? Camera defect? I just don't know.

[slothead]

I've found a number of times that my camera is ON after I've turned it OFF and put it away.  I suspect that it gets turned on by some sort of 'rubbing' and moving the power switch as I am putting it in a bag (personally I can't imagine this happening - although anything is possible - and I really blame myself for not properly turning it off before putting it away).  In that case any movement in the bag could wake the camera from sleep mode.

[KlausH]

Klaus, did you or are you able to measure the resistance of the camera at the battery terminal when it is switched off? And perhaps the voltage too. In both cases with the battery removed and disconnected, of course.

 

Here are the values that I've found:

resistance 45 kilo Ohms, voltage 0.23 V

 

I checked the battery drainage again. 

Camera off: 1% loss of capacity after 15 hours.

Camera on, in power savings mode (sleeping): 1% loss of capacity after 14 hours.

 

I draw the conclusion that there is really no difference whether you shut the camera off or if it goes to power savings mode by itself.

Shutting off only prevents from accidentally turning the camera on by hitting a button in your camera bag.

 

When you loose more battery power than about 2-3% per day or your time/date settings, then something is not as it is supposed to be.

[brosenz]

I can try to do this tomorrow.

 

The values I have posted here are just my ampmeter readings on my camera (A7R II). Yesterday, at 8:00 p.m. my battery had 93% charge. This morning at 9:30 a.m. – 13.5 hours later – it still shows 93%. That really puzzles me, I cannot duplicate the findings that a battery is totally drained in a week or so. Could it be the settings? The battery? Camera defect? I just don't know.

On my camera, if I leave it off fully charged, on the first day will still be at 100%, on the second day sometimes, on the third it will be at 87%, then will stay at 87% for 1-3 days, then it will go down to 75%, etc., it's not a consistent pattern per day, but the battery overtime is draining. I would say it will take from 1-2 weeks to fully drain to 0%

[roncipolla]

I'm the one that had the battery drain on me in three days, twice.

 

Being a nuts and bolts guy I very much appreciate the latest post from KlauseH and others.

 

Now that we have numbers I feel like, for myself, I can understand what is going on and the

impact it is having on the camera.

 

The a7RII is a mighty advance over most any other camera and with such advances and 

introduction of new technologies the is a cost..............for me it is worth it.  Simply pulling the

battery  when the camera is going to sit a couple of days is a habit I will have to learn.  

 

 

[Guest all8]

An alternative strategy is to have a second battery and the charger BC-TRW (or similar) and simply swap and charge as necessary.

[Damo]

Thanks to KlausH and others for this thread. I am learning a lot from you guys.

[brosenz]

I understand that even when the camera is OFF there will be a battery drain and that's normal for the A7RII camera, at least for now until a possible fix via a future Firmware update. What would happened with the internal non user removable backup battery (to power the date, time, etc.) if I remove the main battery when not using the camera for a long period of time. Will the internal battery get discharged quickly and the settings for date and time will be lost? does anybody knows for how many days or weeks the internal battery will maintain the data for Date and Time before fully discharging? Thanks