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Panasonic Lumix S1, Battery Issue?, Shut Off at 20%


PannySVHS
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That´s a tricky one for professional projects or projects where others rely on dependable tools. @Geoff_L Thank you for your input! I will see what I will do with mine. Image and ergos and mount are just too good to let go. Will give me some thinking and maybe some tinkering, if I keep it. cheers

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17 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

That´s a tricky one for professional projects or projects where others rely on dependable tools. @Geoff_L Thank you for your input! I will see what I will do with mine. Image and ergos and mount are just too good to let go. Will give me some thinking and maybe some tinkering, if I keep it. cheers

You are right, I am not a pro (yet 😄 ) so I will wait to see how the situation evolve... but I will have an eye on the next canon bodies, because half of my lenses are EF. As you said, image and ergos are so good, and Sigma will surely announce more lenses, so waiting may be a good thing. The camera has no problem other than that (ah, yes, the sd card door... feels unfinished, as many have reported, but I fixed it by using a smallrig cage eheh).

Oh, and on the photo side, because I use it for 50/50, it is a pure joy also !

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Darn, this cam delivers with its tiny h265 75mbit flavour. Unbelieveable image quality for a codec like this. Shouldnt be that good! Battery life: Shot  with it down to 40 percent. Next day turned the cam on and after pressing record it went down to 20 percent, which lasted me only a very few minutes of filming, 8bit 4k 50p really ran down these last 20 percent fast. I will keep the camera and will have to be equipped with three additional original batteries and an additional solid charging solution. Additional charger needs to be mechanically solid and especially not worse regarding charging than the cumbersome usb-charger-usb-box-cable-long-snake-solution.

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I have been using Panasonic cameras for 10 years and this is the only one which I regularly have the fear of low battery. I'm not used to this. Man, my GH4 was able to record 3 hour long 4K videos and still wouldn't hit the wall! I never thought that Pana would disappoint me in this regard.

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  • 1 month later...

OK, I think I have enough of this ! Just picked up my S1, turned it on, check the battery indicator : 64%.
Great, so I mount my 24-105, turn the camera on, and start to play with the autofocus. 1 minute later, the camera shutdown with "low battery" message. I took a picture, cause the lcd displays this message, while the small top screen displays 3 remaining bars !
This is crazy, and I think I'm gonna get rid of it asap. I can only use 30% of a battery, which weight 110gr !! I accept the weight of the system, but carying multiple 110gr batteries that power my camera for only a small time... might as well buy a canon R6 : the overheating would let me shoot more than pany s1 and its batteries ahah.

No, seriously, I might go back to a nikon Z6 + a dedicated video camera (bmpcc4k, gh5s...). Oh, wait, why not a R6, as I will soon move to live to the arctic (no joke 😄) !

s1_dead_battery.jpg

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  • 9 months later...
On 7/28/2020 at 5:29 PM, Geoff_L said:

OK, I think I have enough of this ! Just picked up my S1, turned it on, check the battery indicator : 64%.
Great, so I mount my 24-105, turn the camera on, and start to play with the autofocus. 1 minute later, the camera shutdown with "low battery" message.

Weird coincidence or...?

I got this just now. Exactly at 64%!

I just went out to try an updated AF test and same thing, - camera reads 64% charge remaining but as soon as I hit record, I get a message saying it's writing to card and then immediately shuts off.

I did order 2 extra (3rd party) batteries the other day and waiting for them to arrive, but not great ahead of several big shoots coming up and probability of buying a second S1H body...

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Just to add my data points...

I keep two (2) S1's in go-bags for different purposes, one equipped with a Sigma 150-600mm C/MC-21 for my birding/nature imaging, the other with the kit 24-105mm for my wide-angle days.

The latter will sometimes sit untouched for several weeks and I do notice an incremental battery draw over time (this is not unusual behavior, all of my Sony and Canon cameras have done the same)...I just checked this bag (which has been sitting about 3 weeks) and the charge is at 80%, which, to me, is normal and to be expected.

The former is my near-daily driver and it's not uncommon for me to shoot well-in-excess of 500 still images to SDXC in a morning (some days well-over 1000, it's warbler season, folks!) and (if I'm fortunate) maybe 5–10 60-second video clips to CFExpress B. I carry two spares in my pocket. I shoot until the battery dies which, usually, allows me a full-day's shoot without a battery swap. Only once, in very cold weather, did I ever have to resort to the 3rd battery.

I shoot in any outdoor temperature for my area which are generally somewhere between -5°F–95°F (-20°C–35°C).

I have had zero issues and I have zero complaints with the performance of my Panasonic-branded BLJ31's. I keep the batteries topped-off every day (except the 24-105 pack) using the supplied BTC-14 charger which (as a nice touch) turns itself off when charging is complete. FWIW, I never head out with a partially-charged battery.

IME, much better performance than I ever got out of my Sony NP-FW50's with my a7S II, a7R and a6300, and marginally better performance than I ever got out of my Canon LP-E6's with my 5D II and 7D. The only batteries that I've ever used that have exceeded the performance of the Panasonic batteries have been the Sony NP-F970's that run my VX-2000.

Anyhoo, them's my data points. :)

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Well I put the battery on charge and then tried again and all seems well.

I suspect this was a case of a run down charge battery not being properly indicated on the camera display...

I started the recharge internally using the USB and had to swap it for my phone shortly after. The camera then read 30% which is why I believe it was probably near flat when I had tried to use the camera earlier.

I then switched the charging to the proper dedicated battery charger which is quicker than the USB anyway I think?

So I suspect with hindsight it was probably me not realizing how much I’d run down the battery.

My plan going forward is 3 batteries. 
1 always in the camera, 1 spare fully charged and 1 always on charge (USB and power bank on a job), label them A, B and C and cycle them.

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Don’t buy Dot.Foto aftermarket batteries!

A pair arrived yesterday and I could not get either to charge much above 50%!

As a result, I did some research and found a video from some guy (I forget who) who thoroughly tested around 10 aftermarket batteries and the result was 2 other brands as good as Panasonic’s own.

Hahnel and Patona.

I’ve sent the Dot.Fotos back and ordered a pair of the Patonas.

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11 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Don’t buy Dot.Foto aftermarket batteries!

A pair arrived yesterday and I could not get either to charge much above 50%!

As a result, I did some research and found a video from some guy (I forget who) who thoroughly tested around 10 aftermarket batteries and the result was 2 other brands as good as Panasonic’s own.

Hahnel and Patona.

I’ve sent the Dot.Fotos back and ordered a pair of the Patonas.

Mine are some random brand called BM Premium, work well for me. Aftermarket batteries can definitely be hit or miss tho

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