[Zubati Kit]

Its not just you SimSV, even the camera doesn't know when the batteries are actually empty - that is why it shuts off. As others have said, I don't think Pentax will ever acknowledge the problem. I called them and they gave usual stuff about bad batteries, bad charger etc. When I persisted, they said to send it in and that they will have a look at it. But it doesn't inspire too much confidence if they claim that they are not aware of any such problem with NiMH rechargeables.

I think, the camera should be calibrated to work for the lowest common denominator. Every type of battery chemistry has a typical discharge curve. We are looking at Alkalines, NiMH and Lithiums. I am sure some genius in their R&D can figure out a logic that can manage these three types safely and reliably. Heck, the Minolta 7Hi I had in 2002 could do it, and so can my mom's Canon P&S, there is no reason why they can't do it for the K100D. But to do it, they first have to acknowledge that there is a prob - and I don't see that happening soon. Maybe if all of us K100D/K110D users here start calling them up twice everyday to complain about it....

Till then I think I can get by with the Rayovac Hybrids (still testing, but looks promising) and a couple of sets of Lithiums as a back-up. Apparently they have a very long shelf life - the ones I saw at Walmart yesterday had dates from 2012 to 2015, but they are not cheap.

Cheers
Teja

but there is no problem for (vast) majority of users, I would imagine, otherwise you would see this question appear a lot more often.

I have a K100D, and roughly

Energizers 2500mah - 200-300 shots
Fujicell 2900mah - 300-400
Maha 2700mah 400-500
Eneloop 2000mah~ 600+

this is with using flash as necessary... the trick I think is self discharge with all of them, Eneloop - least self discharge = longest lasting.

when they die I just go and recharge, with last 1k+ shots I am only using Eneloops and Maha... don't see where is the problem...

I can still use my other Nimhs for my daughters toys, other stuff around the house, while keeping the best batteries with me, AA's are most convenient type of power and the fact that people who are not comfortable with batteries depleting fast can buy RCRV's and now Eneloops.

With RCRV's there is no loss of AF speed, and they last as long as other propriatory cells, so if you want such performance you can still get it, with the added benefit - when being without power outside of your house/hotel, you are still able to buy yourself another 50 shots for pocket change.

[vilx]

Had the same problem, describet in initial post. As it turned out, problem was bad cell, a few days later my advanced charger Ansmann Powerline 5 showed "bad" for one of cells. Until that used the same cells in Canon A75 with no problems, and charged cells with cheap charder, wich charged cells in pairs. Now I use Sanyo NiMH AA (Mignon - HR 6) 2700 mAh, for about one week, made ~150 shots, mostly with flash on, still shows "full".
Edited: After ~400 shot still "FULL"

[UnknownVT]

Had the same problem, describet in initial post. As it turned out, problem was bad cell, a few days later my advanced charger Ansmann Powerline 5 showed "bad" for one of cells. Until that used the same cells in Canon A75 with no problems, and charged cells with cheap charder, wich charged cells in pairs. Now I use Sanyo NiMH AA (Mignon - HR 6) 2700 mAh, for about one week, made ~150 shots, mostly with flash on, still shows "full".

Canon compact digicams are very tolerant and frugal with batteries - which obviously is a very good thing - unfortunately as you've found out it is not good for a reliable indication of the condition/state of the batteries.

Sanyo has a very good reputation for NiMH rechargeable batteries.

However the main complaint of NiMH is their high self-discharge rate - often people return to thie cameras some months later to find the batteries flat.

Regular NiMH lose about 15% of their charge in the initial 24hours, then tapers down to about 15% every 30 days thereafter (ref: BatteryUniversity.com) - so they lose about 30% of their charge in a month (~45% at 2 months, and ~60% at 3 months).

The current trend seems to be to use LSD (see 5.1.1 Low Self Discharge Batteries at Wikipedia) batteries in the K100D - such as eneloops, RayOVac Hybrid, Kodak Pre-Charged (all 3 of these are reasonably easily obtainable - eg: WalMart has all 3). The LSD batteries have lower capacity (2000-2100mAh) but hold their charge a lot longer (to about 70-85% in a year)

Apparently the Sanyo eneloops are different from the others. Eneloops have very slightly lower capacity (although the rating seems very accurate) - but seem to hold their charge longer. Eneloops are the most popular because of name recognition - but reports on others are all favorable - but beware these are all relatively new on the market.

The cross-over point between 2000-2100mAh LSD batteries (like eneloop, Hybrid, or Kodak Pre-Charged) and higher capacity regular 2500-2700mAh NiMH is about 30 days - ie: on par at about 30 days.

My personal "strategy" is to use freshly charged high capacity NiMH ~2500mAh when I know I have to shoot a lot over a short period of time and keep a set of LSD batteries (I use the Kodak Pre-Charged mainly because they are cheap) as back-up/spare.

If I am not going to use the camera for a while - I then keep the LSD/Kodak Pre-charged in the K100D so it's always ready to use, without notice. Plan to do a top-up charge of LSD's about every 6 months

Some references on LSD -

Eneloop Self Discharge study - CandlePowerForums

new Kodac "Pre Charged" NiMH batteries?
see posts #13 , #14 for comparison graphs of capacity between the Kodaks and the standard Duracell 2650mAh NiMH, and against the Uniross Hybrio (LSD).

Kodak Pre-Charged at WalMart



Get a good charger for the batteries - the cheapo over-night/"value" chargers are too frustrating - but they do work - however be very aware and only do "top-up" charges very sparingly as these chargers are timer based so canNOT detect true end of charge - so are prone to OVERcharging which can kill NiMH early.

A reasonable charger is one that charges batteries in 2 to 1 hours and automatically detects end of charge, and shuts down or goes into lower "trickle mode". (15-30 minute chargers apparently are a bit harsh on batteries).

[SteveB]

I'll just add a few facts as measured with my particular K100D........

Battery meter shows full charge at > 1.25v per cell, i.e. >5.00v
Battery meter shows half charge at 1.25v per cell, i.e. 5.00v
Battery meter shows empty and camera shuts down at 1.19v per cell, i.e. 4.76v

I'm an electronics engineer and took great care in taking these readings by the way, it's very easy to get it wrong. Other K100Ds could be a bit different of course, and temperature may be a factor possibly, I'm not going to repeat these measurements to find out.

As far as batteries are concerned, Uniross Hybrios are SO EASY to live with, I get 5-600 shots over just about any period of time I'm ever likely to leave them in the camera and they outlasted a friend's Canon 5D Li-On batteries at the same airshow and I took more pictures, so where's the problem? I've about 9 months experience with these batteries, they're great.

Energizer 2500mAh (Sanyo manufactured) NiMh batteries last for 900 shots if used the same day as charging, but may only get 2-300 after a week or two. Now, I've measured the remaining capacity of Energizers after a 2 week rest, and it's hardly dropped at all, what's happened is that the voltage has depressed to a level where the K100D cutoff voltage is approached, so only a couple of hundred shots max is likely whereas there's actually plenty of charge in them for 2 or 3 times that. So, when the K100D says they're flat there's actually 75% of the charge remaining. Hybrios' voltage doesn't depress so much after a rest period so still can deliver most of their charge into a K100D.

[UnknownVT]

Battery meter shows full charge at > 1.25v per cell, i.e. >5.00v
Battery meter shows half charge at 1.25v per cell, i.e. 5.00v
Battery meter shows empty and camera shuts down at 1.19v per cell, i.e. 4.76v

I've measured the remaining capacity of Energizers after a 2 week rest, and it's hardly dropped at all, what's happened is that the voltage has depressed to a level where the K100D cutoff voltage is approached, so only a couple of hundred shots max is likely whereas there's actually plenty of charge in them for 2 or 3 times that. So, when the K100D says they're flat there's actually 75% of the charge remaining. Hybrios' voltage doesn't depress so much after a rest period so still can deliver most of their charge into a K100D.

Thank you very much for the interesting results - much appreciated.

From what I've read so far the Uniross/UltraLast Hybrio and the Sanyo eneloop (both LSD - Low Self Discharge) seem to maintain higher voltage levels - can't say I understand this, as the spec'd/nominal voltage of NiMH is supposed to be 1.2V.

But your experiments and many other reports seem to indicate that LSD batteries do appear to maintain their voltage levels better.

Here's another thread over at CPF -

My Eneloops charge to and hold a higher voltage than other LSD's


Thanks.

[Grimlock]

This is a repost of a thread in the Accessories forum, but I'm posting this here to see if I can get the answers I seek, besides someone else suggesting AA's. I'm done with rechargable AA's, period.

Okay, I've just about had my fill of rechargeable AA's. Just a few days ago, I used a fully-charged set of Kodak 2500mah AA's (just bought 2 weeks ago and charged 3 times before this) and took over 1000 shots at the Atlanta Zoo on one charge. Admittedly, I didn't use autofocus for about several hundred of those shots, but I did use the LCD screen to review a lot, so good performance overall. I recharge the set that night in a Kodak 1-hr charger (with a light that goes out when they're done), and the next day go out to Stone Mountain park to take shots there. I started the day with another set of batteries (Duracell 2650mah AA's), but when the laser light show was starting up that night, I set up to do a bunch of bulb-mode shots so I changed out the set I started out with for the exact same Kodak's that I had just recharged less than 24 hours ago. I get FIVE 3-second exposures out of them before "battery discharged" flashes on my LCD. Fortunately, I carry a set of regular CRV-3's for situations just like this & plopped them in and they lasted for the rest of the night's shooting. Needless to say, this and several prior experiences like this have gotten me to the point of shaving my freakin' head bald. I'm convinced that rechargeable AA's are just not reliable for the K100d, but I don't wanna just start using one-shot lithiums because of how much that can add up over time. So I see 3 choices on rechargeable CRV-3's:

Ultralast CRV-3's-I was able to find these locally for the same price, but they're rated at 2.4V, which is less than the standard 3V for CRV's, so I'm not sure how safe they would be to use in the K100d. Plus, they struck me as being a bit crappy when I looked over the packaging & such. They are the most inexpensive of the lot, and it would be easy for me to get 2 full sets.

Delkin-These are supposed to be the safest ones to use in the K100d as far as voltage is concerned, but they're also the most expensive of the choices I'm looking at.

Lenmar-These have a higher mah than the Delkins, and they're a little cheaper. I've also found them locally, but I have zero idea about their voltage.

I'm currently leaning towards the Delkins, but the price is a bit prohibitive as I'd like to buy 2 full sets of rechargeables, which would be almost $100 at that price. As I'm currently carrying 3 sets of rechargeable AA's, I was thinking of getting 1 set of rechargeable CRV-3's and carrying 2 sets of rechargeable AA's until I can afford to get a 2nd set of rechargeable CRV-3's.

So, anyone have an opinion on these particular CRV's? 'Cause I'm truly fed up with the AA's, and I can't get rid of them fast enough.

[UnknownVT]

the exact same Kodak's that I had just recharged less than 24 hours ago. I get FIVE 3-second exposures out of them before "battery discharged" flashes on my LCD.

This (obviously) sounds very wrong.

I think probably what happened was that the charger shut off (very) prematurely leaving the batteries bascially UNcharged.

This sort of thing can happen to ANY rechargeable battery system that uses a "smart" charger (that is one that detects an end of charge and not a simple timer charger).

I've had basically low batteries stop charging within seconds of starting - which obviously was not right - and it was a simple case of bad connection - cleaning the contacts (or simply jiggling the batteries) started/resumed the normal charging.

Hopefully your Kodak NiMH batteries - which did perform really well - are actually OK - try charging them again - but this time watch that it does take about 1 hour to charge - if the light goes out within a few minutes then there might be something not right about the charger or just try jiggling the batteries, or better still clean the contacts.

Of course it's you prerogative - but one bad experience shouldn't spoil what is generally an OK system.

[EvilPentaxUser]

I went to a local festival, but left my batter charger at home, did NOT charge batteries the night before. I tried using brand new batteries made by Die hard and rayovac, NONE worked in the camera. next time, batteries will be charged up and charger in bag just in case. and also.... 2 CRV3 batteries as well just as a last resort.

[UnknownVT]

FWIW -
New Years Eve I shot the Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi gig -
and had charged up a set of cheapo Digital Concepts/Sakar 2500mAh NiMH on the day -
they lasted the entire gig - taking 529 shots - mostly without flash -
but I also took some snapshots of friends with flash.
I did a lot of playback reviewing between the 3 sets, and I had my K100D set on 2sec review (which I did not turn off). I only noticed the half-battery signal about 40mins before the end of the show.

The batteries eventually were depleted while I was doing an extended review/playback at home.

This is a pretty good performance considering the Digital Concepts 2500mAh NiMH did not review that well.



Photo links -

Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi

North Mississippi AllStars

Scrap O Matic

My current "strategy" is to use a set of 2500mAh NiMH charged on the day of (or night before) the shoot - and keep 2 sets of LSD batteries - Kodak Pre-Charged and eneloops as back up.

I keep the LSDs in the camera when I am not using it for a shoot - so it is always ready -
and do a maintenance/top-up charge when I have used the camera for more than just a few shots,
or schedule for about once every 6 months.

I'll also refer everyone back to SteveB's excellent post #49 (link) above in this thread.

An aside comment -

Pentax (K100D) AWB - Auto White Balance does not work that well under this type of stage lighting conditions. I had to use the Tungsten White Balance to get a reasonable color balance which kind of looked a bit too "artificially" daylight like - if you understand what I mean - I prefer a very, very slight yellow color cast - the Pentax AWB gives way too strong a yellow cast.
(my Canon S80 p&s AWB excels under these conditions and gives me mostly the color balance I like).

Although setting the K100D to Tungsten balance may not sound like a big deal, or that inconvenient - the problem is if I want to mix in some slow-sync fill-in flash - I have to remember to set the balance back to AWB - otherwise the shot will be way too Blue - and I'll have to discard the shot, or have my work cut out for me to re-balance the color in editing.