[dbh]

I was looking at all the data embedded in the K10D PEF files I took at my nephew's birthday party and noticed some intriguing info in the manufacturer notes section. The battery capacity is in there and the first shot of the afternoon showed about 98%. Over about 2 hours I shot about 70 pictures, all using the external strobe on-camera. The last file showed about 65% battery life. Of course the camera's visible indicator showed full the whole time. As many have noticed, this indicator gives you almost no warning before you're out of juice completely.

Now I'm not saying there are 100 levels of accurate and linear battery capacity information available, but this data would seem to imply more than the 3 used in the LCD indicator!
In view of the plethora of info available at the touch of the INFO button, it sure would be nice to be able to pull up that battery capacity figure from time to time since it's in there already. It even has load vs. no-load V and % !

A custom INFO page where you get to pick your favourite fields of camera-measured data would be useful since there are others in there like voltage and temperature as well.
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dbh

[krs]

Given the ability of the K10D to specify the battery consumption when using the grip and a second battery (grip battery first, camera battery first, both), it could be nice to get some additional insight on battery consumption percentage, especially if the data is "there" somewhere!

[dbh]

Given the ability of the K10D to specify the battery consumption when using the grip and a second battery (grip battery first, camera battery first, both), it could be nice to get some additional insight on battery consumption percentage, especially if the data is "there" somewhere!

Forgot to mention - this data is available in the Maker Notes for both batteries individually,
Grip Volts & %, Load & No-load
Body Volts & %, Load & No-load

So for grip users this could be even more useful.
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dbh

[Lowell Goudge]

I was looking at all the data embedded in the K10D PEF files I took at my nephew's birthday party and noticed some intriguing info in the manufacturer notes section. The battery capacity is in there and the first shot of the afternoon showed about 98%. Over about 2 hours I shot about 70 pictures, all using the external strobe on-camera. The last file showed about 65% battery life. Of course the camera's visible indicator showed full the whole time. As many have noticed, this indicator gives you almost no warning before you're out of juice completely.

Now I'm not saying there are 100 levels of accurate and linear battery capacity information available, but this data would seem to imply more than the 3 used in the LCD indicator!
In view of the plethora of info available at the touch of the INFO button, it sure would be nice to be able to pull up that battery capacity figure from time to time since it's in there already. It even has load vs. no-load V and % !

A custom INFO page where you get to pick your favourite fields of camera-measured data would be useful since there are others in there like voltage and temperature as well.
--
dbh

I will need to look into this, what program were you using to look at the EXIF data as I don't recall seeing this previously.

My reason for asking is quite simple, at present, the battery indicator shows 3 positions I will also indicate on my copy of the K10D what each indicates,

full - anywhere from 100% charge to 10 shots left
half - 10 shots before the camera stops working and
dead - self explanitory no shots left.

My concern isn't that there is 100 levels known in the camera but that there are only 2 known to the user, shoot or change the battery.

[dbh]

I will need to look into this, what program were you using to look at the EXIF data as I don't recall seeing this previously.

My reason for asking is quite simple, at present, the battery indicator shows 3 positions I will also indicate on my copy of the K10D what each indicates,

full - anywhere from 100% charge to 10 shots left
half - 10 shots before the camera stops working and
dead - self explanitory no shots left.

My concern isn't that there is 100 levels known in the camera but that there are only 2 known to the user, shoot or change the battery.

PhotoMe. And use it on your original PEF files. Look in the Manufacturer Notes section near the bottom. I did a plot of % left (no load) main battery vs shot count and it drops very progressively. I'd be very interested in your findings.
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dbh

[pop4]

exiftools also displays battery related info. Here's the info for one of my photos, anyone know what the numbers mean?

Battery Type: 2
Battery Body Grip States: 4 1
Battery AD Body No Load: 184
Battery AD Body Load: 179
Battery AD Grip No Load: 5
Battery AD Grip Load: 1

[dbh]

exiftools also displays battery related info. Here's the info for one of my photos, anyone know what the numbers mean?

Battery Type: 2
Battery Body Grip States: 4 1
Battery AD Body No Load: 184
Battery AD Body Load: 179
Battery AD Grip No Load: 5
Battery AD Grip Load: 1

PhotoME interprets them into voltage and percentage. How I'm not sure yet. Probably a simple formula, maybe including the camera temperature and averaged results the PhotoMe programmer obtained from somewhere. An experiment for another day, I guess.

It's nice find out that there are so many measurement levels for those batteries, at the same time it's frustrating to see that Pentax chose to distill them into what amounts to a nearly useless indicator. BTW, the K20D info display has an additional screen showing a little cartoon of the camera with a grip attached an a pair of batteries coloured green. This could have been where they include a little xx% beside the icons.
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dbh