Any RX100 owners experiencing unusual battery drain?

[Randy Nelson]

I'm leaving on a trip in a few days and my trusty Canon S95 now has lens flare in pics shot into bright light. Took it in to the shop and they cleaned the sensor but it didn't help. The tech didn't check the lens in bright conditions, just inside. When he looked at it again he said it was dirt inside the lens and the lens assembly would have to be replaced, by Canon, for about $200. I'd read great things about the RX100 series so I decided to check them out. The M3 and M4 are more than I want to spend. The M2 didn't seem to have anything extra that appeals to me so I decided on the original. But while I was killing time at a doctor appointment on the way to the camera store and came across a thread on the Sony boards where quite a few people say they are having batteries drain way faster than they should. There's quite a few threads at other sites as well. Kind of scary. But I decided to get it anyway since the store says they'll exchange it if there's a problem and I really don't have time to do any more research before the trip. Going to bring along a USB mobile battery charger just in case since I don't have time to order decent priced spares. So has anyone ran into the issue? Thanks.

[Brad Rogers]

Not I. I have a RX100 v1 and get ~315-325 shots per battery with the original Sony and the generic I bought from Amazon a few years ago. I recently bought a "Clearmax" generic battery off Amazon and got 502 shots from it in Alaska. Thats only one data point and I have only used that "clearmax" battery that one time, but it looks optimistic.

[Randy Nelson]

Thanks Bradford. Are you shooting JPEG or RAW plus JPEG to get those shots per battery? I'm just switching to RAW plus JPEG and don't know how much that will affect the battery life. That USB charger should get me at least one more charge as the RX100 battery is 1240 and the charger is 2200 mAH although I have no idea on their efficiency. But it will have to do for this trip as I'm out of time. Oh well, hopefully it will all work out fine.

[ed hyatt]

I'm getting about the same as Bradford – shooting 'jpg and RAW.

[Randy Nelson]

Thanks Ed. That sounds like it should be fine then.

[Jennifer Mitol]

I have the Mkiii and I only shoot RAW…I also get more than 300-350 pix per battery charge.

[Dave G]

I haven't seen the reports you mention, but I have experienced unusual battery drain on my RX100mk1 when I started using it, I figured out that the "play" button was getting pressed in my pack, this puts the camera into image review mode, even when switched off. Being aware of this when storing has eliminated the problem. I haven't been able to find a menu setting to disable this behaviour. Dave

[Randy Nelson]

Thanks Jen. BTW, love the JMT pics. I really need to learn to take pics of that quality. Dave, that is one of the things mentioned in some of the threads. I'll keep an eye out for it. I didn't realize that my S95 turned on like that as well. I've always carried it in my pocket and never had it come on, or had any unexplained battery issues, but am going to try a Lowepro shoulder strap case on this trip with the RX100. It's a soft case but seems like it would prevent the power or play buttons getting pushed accidentally. Thanks for all the replies. I'm heading out for my trip and hope to report back that I didn't run into any issues.

[Randy Nelson]

My trip was cut short by some seriously inclement weather so I only took 160 pics (RAW + JPEG) and a few short videos. The camera was still showing the battery as mostly full. I downloaded the data (kind of slow compared to my S95) and unplugged, turned off the camera and left it on my desk. This morning I went to use it and it wouldn't turn on. I plugged it in to charge and a message came on saying battery exhausted. Strange. I'll have to do some proper testing to see what's going on. Battery worked fine in the field though. I didn't have time to read the manual at all before I left and I got cute and took a smaller phone on the trip and forgot to swap the SD card from my phone. Which is where the PDF of the camera manual was. DOH! There was so much rain that I kept it in a ziplock inside my trash compactor bag for the last 2.5 days to make sure it stayed dry since I just bought it. Not much to see during that time anyway. Very disappointing I didn't get to spend time learning about it and playing with it. Oh well.

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