PT-350 battery life

[Photoshark 0]

I recently purchased an Olympus PT-350 and have been shooting it on land and find the battery life short. It seems the low battery icon starts to appear after 25 to 30 shots. I am using 2500mah NiMH batteries and when I return them to the charger the light indicating a full comes on in about 15 minuits indicating the batteries still have a significant amount of power left. Anyone have any suggestions or reccomend a differnt battery.

[meister 1]

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp...essage=16436520

[ce4jesus 1]

I've noticed with mine that the low battery icon is almost always on even with 2500mah AA's yet I've gotten through an entire 512 card before they truly expire and give you the battery dead blue screen. While that's fine on land where you can pop in fresh batteries any place, any time, I would only trust a fresh CR-V3 battery on a dive.

[Larry C 24]

Wow. I thought I was the only one having this problem. I just went through the whole DP review hash over the SP battery issue, and apparently it's pretty endemic. With my rechargeable radioshack CRV-3, I got a battery empty message and the lens retracted after about 10 seconds. It did this a couple of times, so I thought maybe the battery hadn't charged fully. (It still might be true, as the RS charger is a piece of @$#%, it doesn't hold the battery tight enough or something, and the little red and green lights flash on and off at will.) What's weird is that once it actually came back on, it worked for like 45 minutes with no problem. I've had it happen a couple of times, so I'm extra careful to wiggle the battery in the charger a little and leave it on longer. BTW, radioshack calls their RCRV-3 3 volt, while the sterlingtek website called theirs 3.4. Maybe the higher voltage would help, as that seems to be an issue with NimH batteries according to all the comments on DP review.

[Photoshark 0]

Thanks for the help, I went outside and continued to take shots after the low battery icon came on and was able to get above 70 to 80 shots and stopped with the camera still functioning. I also went to Thomas Dist. and ordered a CR-V3 charger and acouple of batteries. I feel a lot better about my choice of camera now. My first dive trip with new camera will be Bonaire in March. Once again thanks for the quick help.

[ce4jesus 1]

I just had the opportunity to do this again and wanted to share the results with you. This wasn't exactly scientific because I started out the day as a dad just taking birthday shots. Here's how it went. I loaded some 2500mah (Kodak brand) batteries the other day. I took a few shots on RAW purely experimental because I was testing some photo editing software. I can't be 100% for sure but I want to say between 5-10. I then used these same batteries today at my daughters birthday tonight. I formated the card using the camera and batteries to start the birthday. Over the course of the next 4 hours I filled the card completely (43 RAW photos). Battery status was in the red (but not flashing) most of the day. These photos were taken with the internal flash! I then downloaded the card to the PC, reformatted it again inside the camera and filled the card a second time. This time it was a mixture of Jpeg and RAW. I download the 2nd 512MB card and again formatted inside the camera. As a curiousity, I then began firing more RAW photos to see if I could make the batteries expire. After 25 more RAW photos with the internal flash, I pronounced this battery nonsense dead. Even though the batteries inside were....well still going, I still decided to quit. There's no way I'd exceed 1G of data underwater in 1 day (I can't hold my air that long...haha) moreover, the camera fired another 256MB over 1G while using the internal flash which will be shut off while diving. Furthermore, this is on top of using it for an unspecified short period the other day. I'm now supremely confident that these AA rechargeables will get me through a days worth of diving.

 

Some notes of results - red battery warning was on most of the day.

2. BAttery warning began to flash during the first part of the 2nd card.

3. internal flash was used the entire time!!!

4. When battery power indicator started to flash, the internal flash recharge time exceeded the RAW write times. 25 seconds between shots

5. During the day when pictures were taken, several shots (25?) were played back so people could see them. (it didn't occur to me to be scientific because I had no intention of testing the battery time when the day began). However, as the day progressed and I realized the batteries were holding up fine, I began to note the process.

 

In conclusion, I can only say that the indicator in the camera itself might be flawed. I've also heard of people having issues with the CR-V3 where they had to shut off the camera and restart it in order to get it to work correctly. I've not yet experienced this with AA rechargeables. If it helps, I purchased my camera in October. I'm uncertain of the firmware revision level.

[Larry C 24]

That's pretty impressive. It makes sense that the NimH AA's would last quite a while. They're rated at 1.2v (2.4 total) 2500milliamp/hr, my Radioshack CRV-3 is rated at 3.7v, 1440milliamp/hr so while the voltage is higher which may keep the recharge light off, the AA's should have triple the capacity. I'm diving tomorrow, so if the case doesn't flood on the empty UW test at depth, I should have a good 45 minute dive to see how it holds up. These will be my first photos with anything other than a cheapie UW disposable so hopefully they won't be too embarassing to post a few.

[ce4jesus 1]

The SP-350 battery life issue isn't an issue at all. As I've gone onto discover, its wholly a battery meter issue. I just did a party shoot last night with a 1G card. My batteries are Kodak 2500mah batteries. The camera batteries lasted through 2 fills of the 1G card and almost made it through the 512MB card before expiring. This required formatting the 1G card/downloading to PC between uses and then formatting of the 512MB card as well. I made it through 37 of the available 43 RAW shots taken on the 512 card. If you're counting that's 123 RAW photos. Interestingly enough, the Batteries actually register on the meter as green about .5 full to start the shoot. Within the first 20 shots the meter turns Red. The meter begins to blink red about 3/4 of the way through the first card however, the batteries don't give up the ghost until quite awhile later.

 

Some further notes of interest

 

For the most part, the internal flash wasn't used for this test. It was used toward the end of the test because the batteries in my flash died before the ones in the camera...haha. In any case, I see no reason to purchase the CR-V3's or CR-V3 rechargeables at this point. The 1G card holds 86 RAW photos and the 512MB card holds 43. I think I'd really have to be snapping away on a days diving to even come close to filling the 1G card. Anyway, I thought that might be an item of interest to some folks on here. I purchased the Kodak batteries at Walmart so they're not of some extraordinary variety. Later,

 

Gary

[Larry C 24]

I agree, Gary. Put this one to bed. After shooting for 40 minutes, camera and screen on full time underwater, I've been messing with it for two weeks, done a bunch of downloads. Yesterday I took about a hundred pictures of my students hitting tennis balls, using the zoom motor in and out, the whole while. My R-CRV-3 still reads full green. You could probably put 4-5 dives on this thing without running out of battery.

[bobf 0]

There is one possible explanation that has not been mentioned yet regarding earlier concerns of NiMH performance that may be a partial contributing factor.

 

My assumption is that NiMH batteries originally installed in the new camera were also new. Initially charged properly, yes, but still considered "new".

 

NiMH batteries are reported to go through a "conditioning" process that extends their stored energy capabilities. IOW, it is possible for NiMH batteries to actually get better with age, especially if recharged "properly".

 

For a better explanation, read through the FAQ page found here:

 

http://www.thomas-distributing.com/nimhbattery-faq.htm

 

hth,

b