[hjoseph7]

The battery on my K-5II drains pretty quickly when I use a manual lens. I would think an AF lens would draw more power but apparently its the other way around.

[reeftool]

I shot over 500 photos at an outdoor event in February with temperatures around 10F with a K5 and a K 300/4 and my battery showed no signs of dying. Lots of things can affect battery life. Live view, on board flash and the time spent looking at your shots on the LCD will affect battery life. I've found Pentax batteries to be pretty good and have shot well over 1000 photos on a battery on numerous occasions.

[aleonx3]

I suspect that your battery (that particular one) is dying rather than the difference between using manual lenses vs AF lenses.

[matt_lin18]

I saw my K5 OEM battery jump from 3 bars to 1 bar in less than 5 minutes, is this normal? I've been walking in and out of a building but it was no cooler than 70 degrees (21 C) or hotter than 90 (32 C).

[Bruce Clark]

I saw my K5 OEM battery jump from 3 bars to 1 bar in less than 5 minutes, is this normal? I've been walking in and out of a building but it was no cooler than 70 degrees (21 C) or hotter than 90 (32 C).

I don't believe the bar indicators accurately reflect battery capacity. My K-7 can stay on 5 bars for days on end and next time out it may start on 5 bars but almost instantly drop to 4 or 3 bars. If 5 bars is 100%, 3 bars is far less that 60% capacity. I take anything less than 5 bars as it is time to recharge.

[matt_lin18]

I don't believe the bar indicators accurately reflect battery capacity. My K-7 can stay on 5 bars for days on end and next time out it may start on 5 bars but almost instantly drop to 4 or 3 bars. If 5 bars is 100%, 3 bars is far less that 60% capacity. I take anything less than 5 bars as it is time to recharge.

The K5 battery indicator is out of 3 bars on the top LCD screen. Granted, 3 bars isn't an accurate gauge of the capacity.

[Kerrowdown]

drains pretty quickly when I use a manual lens

I only use manual lenses and the batteries seem to last forever, well not quite... but you know what I mean.

Albeit on a less high tech camera body, mine are the K20D's, so perhaps that makes a difference too.

[stevebrot]

I only use manual lenses and the batteries seem to last forever, well not quite... but you know what I mean.

I also use manual focus, non-A contact lenses quite a bit of the time and can't say that I ever noticed any additional battery drain on my K10D or my K-3. It might be different if I were using live view for manual focus, but I am not.


Steve

[clockworkrat]

I had been using a manual 50mm for the best part of last month, but swapped to the DA 18-55 for a day and found my battery ran flat much quicker. There's no good reason for a manual lens to drain the battery quicker; for one, it doesn't have a motor inside.

[Fogel70]

The battery on my K-5II drains pretty quickly when I use a manual lens. I would think an AF lens would draw more power but apparently its the other way around.

Did you start with a fully charged battery?

Pentax battery meter is not very accurate as other have mentioned, and a manual focus lens should put less load on the battery.
So when using a MF lens the battery meter might indicate fully charge much longer than with an AF lens, (even when the battery is almost depleted).

My K7 can behave strange sometimes. When turning on the camera it might show fully charged, but if I try to use live view it will show "battery depleted"

[hjoseph7]

I suspect that your battery (that particular one) is dying rather than the difference between using manual lenses vs AF lenses.

I am not using live view, I have the camera set to manual, metering mode set to AV. I am using an original Pentax lens adapter. The lens being used is a Super Takumar f1.4 and again the camera is a K5-IIs . I'm going to try an AF lens for a while and see what happens , but yesterday the battery life bar was at full when I picked up the camera and within a few minutes after taking maybe 20 shots with the Takumar, it was at half ! I got several Takumar lenses and the camera seems to exhibit the same problems with those lenses also ? My Pentax battery is about 1 year old.

[Not a Number]

The battery life bar I find is next to useless. On my K10D it typically reads 3/4 or 1/4 all the way down until I get the "battery depleted" message on the rear screen. My Olympus Point and Shoot battery indicator does pretty much the same.

[lytrytyr]

I am not using live view, I have the camera set to manual, metering mode set to AV. I am using an original Pentax lens adapter. The lens being used is a Super Takumar f1.4 and again the camera is a K5-IIs.

Are you somehow shorting out the contacts?

That said, the battery on the K-01 I use for M42 lenses seems to last for a good long time.

[aleonx3]

I am not using live view, I have the camera set to manual, metering mode set to AV. I am using an original Pentax lens adapter. The lens being used is a Super Takumar f1.4 and again the camera is a K5-IIs . I'm going to try an AF lens for a while and see what happens , but yesterday the battery life bar was at full when I picked up the camera and within a few minutes after taking maybe 20 shots with the Takumar, it was at half ! I got several Takumar lenses and the camera seems to exhibit the same problems with those lenses also ? My Pentax battery is about 1 year old.

Do you have another battery to try? Is the battery the original OEM one? As somebody said the battery life bar can be little deceiving sometimes especially for those third party cheap batteries (I have those too).

[micromacro]

I've never noticed such a problem with K5iis, and I use manual lenses a lot.