> That's even better. Now I just need to figure out how to get as much
> battery life as you're getting.
Chuck, consider some of the settings you used with the A1 to maximize
battery life with it. The E-M5 is just a new/shiny A1.
Some setting adjustments can make a pretty big difference:
1. Screen/viewfinder auto on/off
2. Sleep time
3. Image-Stabilization exposure-only
4. Image review time/off
5. File type (raw, jpeg, raw+jpeg...)
6. Image-processing extras
7. Auto-focus exposure-only or half-press activation
The important thing to remember is that battery life has very little to do
with the number of exposures, but almost entirely to do with "run time" of
the camera. Anything you can do to put the camera to sleep between pictures
will extend the battery life.
The obscure and obsoleted DMC-L1 is a camera that also eats batteries for
lunch. I usually have all my cameras set for 1 minute sleep time. It just
becomes an awareness thing where if I anticipate taking a picture, I'll
"prime the pump" by tapping the shutter-release to wake it up or keep it
awake. With careful sleep management and avoiding unnecessary chimping, I
can go over 600 pictures and an entire event on a single battery. It seems
like for all of my cameras that use these 1400(ish) mWh batteries, that I
get about two hours of camera run time, regardless of how many pictures are
taken in that period.
Where things get dicey with cameras like the E-M5 is that you have to have
it on much more than a camera like the E-1 or your OM-5D. With the older
tech cameras you can usually view, zoom and even focus (usually, unless
fly-by-wire lenses) with the camera off. All that time spent carefully
framing the scene can be spent with the camera off. But the E-M5 has to be
on otherwise the viewfinder is black.
If I were you, I'd be base-lining the camera. Turn it to all of your normal
settings, but disable the sleep function and display auto-off. Give it a
full charge and set it on the dining room table. Turn it on and let it just
sit there. See how long it takes for the battery to discharge. That will be
your normalized camera run-time expectation.
>From this base-line run-time, subtract:
25% for operations.
Up to 50% for near freezing temperatures.
Up to 20% for IS operations.
Up to 20% for display use
Up to 10% for power-everything lenses.
I say "up to" because not all activity is created equal. Once you have your
base-line and some temperature-based depletion curves, you can have a
pretty good expectation of battery life. It just then becomes a matter of
managing the power.
Power management is something that I do a lot when shooting a long event or
am on a multi-day photo trip where power plugs are rare.
I think that the real solution to this battery life issue is obvious:
OM-3Ti.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
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