[lotech]

Hi there,

I've two question regarding the K3 battery grip.

I attach the BG-5 grip to my K3 all the time, and I specially select to use the grip battery as primary source, I want to keep my camera always ready with full battery, so that I can keep shooting without delay in case I've to remove the grip in the field. I've never completely run down the battery until yesterday, my camera halt with empty battery displayed, I can't power it down, the only way to reset it is to remove and reinstall the camera battery, when I restart my camera I see full battery available again, so it was the grip battery not the camera battery gone flat, I don't know how the battery switching works, it seems the auto switch won't work if I set a primary source, any idea ?

The other problem is regarding the live view, there is no 'red button' on the grip, but randomly my camera switched to live view when I press the AF or green button, I don't know there is a hidden feature or a short while I use it in the rain, I specially purchased the grip to enhance the water resistance, my first K3 ruined in the rain due to water got in from the battery compartment.

[Adam]

If you need to perform a battery pull due to a freeze, then you do have to dismount the grip and remove the battery in the camera. If the battery in the grip is running low I would manually switch over to the body battery just to be safe.

Can't say I've heard of the live view issue you're describing, but perhaps cleaning the contacts on the grip would help.

[lotech]

So the auto switch may not function if I select a primary source.

[tabl10s]

I go body first then grip.

[slip]

I have used the auto select battery for years and never had an issue with it

Randy

[lotech]

Thank guys, but I am still not clear about that, what 'auto' exactly means ?

[tabl10s]

Camera selects which battery to use first.

[Ron_Man]

Thank guys, but I am still not clear about that, what 'auto' exactly means ?

From my observations with the K-7 and K-5 auto seems to use both the main battery and grip in equal amounts in until both are empty. However, I haven't tried it on K-3 but I imagine it probably behaves the same way.

I also ran into issues that once the battery you selected manually depletes then the camera shuts off rather than switching over to the next battery, which i find rather annoying. To combat this I've made it a habit to switch over to the other battery when the selected one goes red..

[lotech]

I find it even when the battery shown empty, I power cycle the camera but it won't change battery source.

Update : I turn on HDR by mistake and took a pic, I don't want to wait for the process to finish so I forced shutdown the camera but it just hangs, I then remove the grip battery but nothing happened, I've to remove the main battery to shut it down, upon power on I recheck the settings and confirmed I set the grip battery as primary source, so the main battery always in use.