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Panasonic S series battery problems (including S5 II)


Andrew Reid
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The startup time on my S5ii is long to the point of me always thinking the battery is flat.

Really annoying.

I’ve had the unexplained drain as well with a battery that was in for a few weeks.

Oddly enough, I’ve just pulled the camera out of my bag to see the lever has moved itself into the ON position whilst travelling (another annoyance as it’s too easy for that to happen) and of course I was fully expecting the battery to be flat and it is still full.

So the secret to not draining the battery when it is off might well be to leave the fucker switched on !

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Had my s5 2x for a week now. After a full charge, the battery is down 25 percent the next day.

I'm also having the same problem with my pair of Samsung NX1's, which are pretty old. The explanation here is that the internal battery has died from old age, and the cameras are using the main batteries to keep time/date etc and other settings alive.

No issues with my Olympus em10 mk 3 and Panasonic G85 though.

To get through a day of shoots, I've ordered a dummy battery and Vmount power source, as the USB C will use the SSD.

Other thoughts:  the sensor size and specs are similar to the Venice Cinema Camera, which kinda makes me excited. Can we consider this a mini Venice?

 

 

 

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I haven’t noticed the battery drain myself but then I charge up all 6 of my batteries the day prior to use for my pair of S5ii’s…so I guess I would not notice.

The start up time however. Yup. As someone who frequently, if not always switches off to save juice between shots (10+ year habit from my Fuji days) it is slooooow.

Won’t be a problem for me any longer as the wounded one with disconnected 1/2 press AF button is off to be fixed today and then both along with various lenses are off to be sold.

Pity because the S5ii has been a pretty great run and gun video camera, the best I have ever had in fact, but it has not been a great hybrid for me as I do not like the stills side and as that is 50% of my work…

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6 hours ago, petrovsky1 said:

Had my s5 2x for a week now. After a full charge, the battery is down 25 percent the next day.

That is a crazy amount of power to use in 24hrs, for a camera that's off!

What's it doing?

6 hours ago, petrovsky1 said:

I'm also having the same problem with my pair of Samsung NX1's, which are pretty old. The explanation here is that the internal battery has died from old age, and the cameras are using the main batteries to keep time/date etc and other settings alive.

The way to test that is to see if it retains the date/time when you remove the main battery and re-insert.

The power to keep the SRAM or whatever it is that stores the time alive is absolutely tiny so it shouldn't be draining the main battery. It is the kind of power required that takes 10 years to drain a button cell.

 

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Some more insights, this time from the GH6:

I was able to get it to boot up instantly, but when you pull the battery and start from 'cold', there is still a 1-3 sec delay in boot-up.

This makes me think that the camera has a 'warm' shut down mode which sips power to facilitate the instant boot-up.

The Sigma Fp-L is another camera which can be slow to wake up. 1-3 seconds. This doesn't drain the battery, and seemingly lacks the ability to turn on any faster.

There is a menu on the Panasonics: "Power Save Mode"

I have put Sleep Mode to Off and Sleep Mode (Wi-fi) to off.

Maybe when Wi-fi sleep is enabled, the Wi-fi chip stays active and connected to your network.

Could that be the prime candidate for draining the battery and even the slow-start ups?

You will notice whenever you enter the Wifi menu on a Lumix, it takes a couple of seconds wait time to enable the wifi chip.

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9 hours ago, petrovsky1 said:

Had my s5 2x for a week now. After a full charge, the battery is down 25 percent the next day.

Something very wrong with that. I can charge my batteries up 2 days prior and they are still showing full charge in the camera.

They may…and probably are down, but less than 10% or I’d lose a bar and they have never shown less than full.

Possibly something in the settings as Andrew has suggested plus possibly they need a few full cycles of depletion and recharge to work properly?

Or there may simply be an issue…

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Talking about the Sony FX9 but Alister Chapman Sony guru said this, could be similar with S5ii, not sure why some cameras don't have the problem though

"The FX9 has a small rechargeable internal battery that runs the internal clock and allows your settings to be saved. This charges while the camera is off and a battery is attached (its why the attached battery will go flat after a couple of weeks)."

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on my S1H it does drain the battery when not in use, but not in the short time frame mentioned here. I have noticed it mostly drain a fresh battery within maybe two weeks of no use, which I still find ridiculous (I guess it could be same rate when accounting for capacity/different batteries?).

Power up is slower than every DSLR I've ever owned. It is quicker after an initial start at the beginning of the day; but still around a second to boot. I also experience inexplicable UI lag/unrecognized button pushes very occasionally. I won't power down at all during a shoot and have so far always been able to swap batteries without a problem.

I mostly have shot Nikon & Canon DSLRs and really miss the instant on experience.

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20 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Some more insights, this time from the GH6:

I was able to get it to boot up instantly, but when you pull the battery and start from 'cold', there is still a 1-3 sec delay in boot-up.

This makes me think that the camera has a 'warm' shut down mode which sips power to facilitate the instant boot-up.

The Sigma Fp-L is another camera which can be slow to wake up. 1-3 seconds. This doesn't drain the battery, and seemingly lacks the ability to turn on any faster.

There is a menu on the Panasonics: "Power Save Mode"

I have put Sleep Mode to Off and Sleep Mode (Wi-fi) to off.

Maybe when Wi-fi sleep is enabled, the Wi-fi chip stays active and connected to your network.

Could that be the prime candidate for draining the battery and even the slow-start ups?

You will notice whenever you enter the Wifi menu on a Lumix, it takes a couple of seconds wait time to enable the wifi chip.

My GH5MK2 uses the same battery. No problem so far. After two weeks it loses maybe a 5%. 

My Wi-Fi is always off. never used. IIRC the camera creates Wi-Fi network of his own, does not connect to your Wi-Fi.

BTW if your camera is connected to your WiFi network you should see it on your home router admin page. 

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The GH6 when I come back to it the next day takes 2 seconds to boot from cold. From then on, powers on instantly unless I again leave it turned off for a long period of time.

So I can see the logic in this - it enters a quick-start / sleep mode for faster power cycling during a shoot, but this also seems to sometimes not disengage or go into 'cold' deep sleep mode properly, thus drains the battery over several days.

They really need to sort it out. Email going off to Pana HQ soon from me and I'll show them a link to this thread, thumbs-up for all the experiences you've posted.

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Well confession time and that is I am doing a complete 180 on letting them go and instead cancelling my Zf pre-order…

I would rather flip to Nikon but the finances don’t stack up and I did fluff up my own limited S5ii (photo) test by having a LUT burned in to my raw files.
Forgot to reset that feature. Doh. I did wonder why they were so bad…🤨

Been having a play today with my wounded one. Another doh, - I sent off the fully functioning one to be fixed 🤪

But otherwise, initial start up time not brilliant but after that, not too bad or I am used to it so no big deal.

Not a fan of the shutter button feel or sound, but that is coming from the ‘in another league S1H’.

I would also rather have the rear screen from the S1H. And its build. And battery life. And OLPF. 

The S1H, which is the better stills camera IMO, is however going in to the static video role, ie, on a tripod with the biggest and heaviest lens.

The pair of S5ii’s are going from video roles into hybrid with various max 750g lenses so no single big heavy unit (my S1H combo was 2.8kg) which was a bit much on a typical 12+ hour shoot, so no single in the hand unit will ever be above 1.5kg and most options well under that.

Cost? Nothing. In fact I’m going to sell a couple of lenses so taking a hit on depreciation, but putting something back in the bank and lightening the load which is a primary aim.

I still think the Nikon/Lumix combo I was considering (Z9 + Zf + S1H) would suit me better, but my man maths says it’s at least 5k to change and that aside, I can’t be arsed to go through the rigmarole, especially after ironing out a few kinks in the set up.

I like my video output, though it could be improved.

I like my stills output (just need to make a few tweaks from S1H to S5ii).

I’m familiar with the system and actually hate change unless something needs to be changed or fixed or the new thing is quantifiable better.

It’s more than decent kit. Niggles yes, but actually easily the best kit I have ever had or anyone in my position could ever need, so remaining Lumix for bodies and Sigma for lenses.

For the time being at least…😉

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On 10/5/2023 at 11:33 PM, Andrew Reid said:

 

The GH6 when I come back to it the next day takes 2 seconds to boot from cold. From then on, powers on instantly unless I again leave it turned off for a long period of time.

 

 

I’ve been using the S5ii a lot over the past week on my trip.

The slow start is completely getting on my tits now.

However, there is a logic to it of sorts as you’ve seen on the GH6 to do with it obviously being in a sleep mode instead of being actually off when you switch it off. I can’t be arsed doing a proper test on it but I would guess it will do a fast start from Off until about maybe about an hour later when you will be back to the “is this thing dead?” startup time.

It would seem logical to suspect that the slow drain is happening when it fails to put itself into full off mode when it is sleeping.

Another thing about the drain issue is how iffy the power gauge is for the battery so you don’t know the real status of how much it has drained.

I ran a battery until the camera shutdown and then accidentally put the same battery back in the next morning and hey presto it had about 20% showing.

I’m not enjoying this camera to be honest.

The brave new world of Panasonic AF isn’t all that either.

 

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34 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

I’m not enjoying this camera to be honest.

I hear you…

I have flip flopped back and forth over it all year long…

I have come to the conclusion it’s a tool, but other than that, I have limited connection with it.

Is that important?

To me, yes it is.

Part of my enjoyment of my work is the tools doing what I need them to do whilst getting out of the way (or at least not in the way) and enjoying them.

For me the S5ii just doesn’t have any soul.

The size and weight is good as are the ergos and I like the video picture quality enough, but as I may have mentioned once or twice before, it doesn’t inspire me in any way and I prefer the S1H.

So I have put my order back in for the second time on the Nikon Zf.

Beyond that, we’ll see but my current thinking is running a 2 system set up in 2024 of Lumix for video and Nikon for stills.

If I do go with that which seems the most likely option for me, I’ll see if I remain with 2 systems, something I would rather avoid, or whether I go fully back to Nikon…

The current plan (Plan 348) is:

Retain 1x S5ii and put it in the static video role.

Keep the S1H and move it from sole stills unit back into roaming filming camera.

Sell the other S5ii plus the Leica 24-90 and replace that with the Zf plus 28, 40 and 105 primes as my candid, personal and ‘less serious’ work camera.

In the new year, add a used Z9 with Tamron 35-150 as my heavy duty work unit.

My overall summary of the S5ii is I have tried to love it, but I just don’t. I don’t hate it, - it’s just not working for me as I had hoped. Sadly.

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