Battery performance in the cold - D5300/D5500, D7500, D500 - test challenge

[Øivind Tøien]

If you look at my data above, with AF inactive (I use back button activation) the lens use 80 mA vs 309 mA for the body only during 30s exposure with my 12-24mm. That is about 26% increase in power consumption. I do not think e-aperture matters much - my 300PF actually has lower power consumption. It is hard to say how a third party lens matches up without any empirical data though. But likely the electronics in an advanced lens has to stay on as long as the camera, not only during AF operation. It all adds up, but it is not a factor of two.

It could be interesting to see what it comes out to if you repeat your previous test with the same AIS lens, battery and settings at the problematic high ISO.

[Peter Connan]

Thanks again

I will report back in due coarse.

[Øivind Tøien]

For the record of this thread here are practical shooting results for the D500 that I reported in the Z-system thread (quote slightly edited):

For the Yukon Quest finish  I captured 657 frames and the D500 reported 50% battery charge left while still cold (-7°C), 60% after rewarming, most captures short bursts at 10 frames per sec. So at room temperature I would have expected to get 1657 frames if the battery was run to 0%.

Tonight I captured 422 frames at the Ice Alaska (ice carving) festival and the D500 reported 7% battery charge left while still cold (perhaps -10°C at the start, -16°C at the end), 17% after rewarming. Most exposures were on tripod at ISO 100, several seconds long, reviewed almost every frame and I used live view for perhaps 1/4 to 1/3 of the frames - sometimes forgot to turn off live view when moving between sites, actively shooting for a total of > 4 hours. Standby timer mostly on 6 sec. or 30 sec. Flight mode was on and no wifi etc active.

In other words, this is just as expected from our above experiences.