[kwar]

It was on the shelf with the power off on both body and grip. Turning it on gave me nothing. Put AA's in the grip and still got nothing. Tested the AA's with a meter and they were fine. Tested the body and grip batteries and found 0.0 volts in each. One of the batteries is aftermarket but the grip is Pentax. I charged the pentax battery for and hour which gave it a weak 6.9 volt charge. I placed this battery in the camera which gave me a weak battery warning on the body. I then placed the AA's in the grip and attached it. This setup got me through the game I had to shoot but I still want to know what happened. This body has froze up three or four times in the seven weeks I've owned it. I'm thinking its got to go back but I need it for a couple more weeks until soccer is over. Anybody have any ideas?

[snofox]

If your camera is freezing up, I would return it. There is a record of this problem on the K-5 in this forum, if you are interested in why this may happen.

Beyond that, charge the battery for a full charge, not just for an hour only. For me, a full charge on any of my cameras is a three to four hour affair. A weak battery charge can cause cameras to do strange things: My K200D becomes hilarious when the batteries get low.

[kz77]

I just got my K5 and noticed a similar battery indicator behavior. Powering the camera on and off shows slightly different levels. I'll give it a few more charging cycles before I start to worry.

[Freak]

Do a factory reset in the menus, this problems shows itself occasionaly (since the K-7) doing a factory reset should stop the lockups, and prevent the battery from going flat when not using the camera.

[kwar]

A reset is worth a shot. Thanks for that, I didnt even consiser it.

As for the partial battery charge, that was only to get it to working codition so I could use it. I have been fully charging both batteries after every couple of heavy uses in order to avoid these type of problems. I think I'm going to send it in once I'm done shooting soccer games. Too many problems for a seven week old $1200 camera. I had to return my K-r once as well.

[reeftool]

I always charge my battery fully, which is a few hours with the K5, and haven't and any issues at all. I haven't had any experience running my K5 battery down to the end but if it is anything at all like the K10D, the indicator shows full until almost fully discharged and when it finally does show a partial charge, you have about 5 shots left. I'm inclined to think it's the same because I used it for 3 straight days on vacation in March, filled 3 cards and the indicator still showed full charge. How you use the camera makes a big difference on battery power. Using live view, using the blinkies and of course the onboard flash can eat up juice. I go long periods without charging my battery. They are that good so if you are experiencing very short battery life then something isn't right. The obvious is the battery itself. It might be a bad one so I would try another battery first and owning a second battery isn't a bad idea, especially if you shoot any video.