GH4 GH5 Battery Life a huge step backward from GH4

C

conraddmb118

Member
I shot on the GH4 for three years, and I, like everyone, was pretty amazed at how well it performed and seemed to never die. I think I could shoot video for like 3 hours before I had to swap. With the GH5, I am lucky if I get just over an hour. It's a pretty big let down, given that that was one of the things that made the GH4 stand out from the Sony a7 series... Anyone have tips or other input? I messaged Panasonic, and told them about tests I've done with the exact same settings with GH4/5 (C4K 24p) and the GH4 was lasting almost 3x as long. They told me some stuff about the GH5 having more advanced xyz and that's the reason.
 
Yup, same experience. GH4 I could work all day on 1.5 batteries (not record all day, work all day, on & off recording).

GH5, nowhere close. It burns more at idle, too, which I'd attribute to the always-on IBIS.

My advice: buy 10 wasabi batteries for $200. They come with chargers too. Plug into a power strip on a table and be done with it...
 
Everyone seems to agree it is the IBIS (in body image stabilize) that is the main battery suck... it apparently draws power even in standby mode. Save settings to C1, C2 or C3-1-2-3 and turn it off.... or even at an hour per battery you can buy a fist full for not that much. And the fact that it takes old GH4 batteries means many of us already have a bunch. Yes it was nice on the GH4 to shoot all day with 2 batteries, but I'm happy to use get IBIS, 4K 60p, no crop, 180fps and so on even if it means using 6 batteries. Wasabi brand is pretty good and cheap.
 
Harry Pallenberg said:
Wasabi brand is pretty good and cheap.
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Cheap, I'll give you...

...Good, I'll argue all day and all night. Out of a pair of Wasabi's I had for the Oly Pen E-P3 I never got 4 charge/use cycles on either one. One died on the 4th charge never to respond again, the other swelled up in the camera while in use after the 4th charge and damn near ruined it. Took over two hours to pry it out without damaging the battery compartment edges. I also had a pair of Wasabi's for the GH2 and while they were better than the ones for the Oly I never got more than half the run time of genuine Lumix batteries out of them.

Now I avoid 3rd party batteries with one exception. The Watson's sold by B&H. B&H would not bother to carry them if they were the same junk other 3rd party stuff is. I have a couple of Panasonic batteries each for the GH4 and for the G85 and some Watson batteries for extras. I've had good luck with the Watson's so far.
 
wow, interesting, first bad I've heard about wasabis. So far so good on my end... I've got a fistful and never had an issue, except 1 DOA I had. But so cheap I didn't even bother to send it back.
 
Quality comes with a tradeoff. Gimbals eat through batteries like candy and it was a given that IBIS would like eat a lot of power. The fact that we can get this level of performance and quality from those tiny little power bricks is still very impressive.

The only alternative at this stage would have been for the GH5 to use larger batteries to compensate for the extra power draw. That would have meant a larger body and older batteries from the GH3 and GH4 wouldn't work.

There are of course options.
1. Get more batteries. While this is a cost at least you can still get over an hour which covers most performances or events you would want to shoot. Even a long concert or dance performance likely has some kind of break after an hour.
2. Use a power source for those really long events.
3. Get the battery grip and double your battery time.
4. Use an adapter and larger external battery on a mount. Only really works for a rig setup but I know some people that eventually go this route and run power to multiple devices for many hours.

Personally I'm ok with the GH5 eating more power, especially when using the audio adapter. It means only needing one type of battery vs the gimbal, audio recorder and camera. Now a single battery type gets you through a shoot and the biggest advantage is you only have to pay attention to that one battery in the GH5 LCD. No more keeping an eye on multiple devices to see when they will die. My Tascam DR-60 hogs through four AA batteries and it is a huge pain to swap them out and keep an eye on them every hour or so while keeping an eye on the camera and actually shoot. With the GH5 you can remove the gimbal (in some cases) and audio recorder and just worry about one device and one battery. That is well worth the tradeoff of how quickly they die which is still impressive at over an hour. If it was under an hour then it would be useless for a lot of productions.
 
Thomas Smet said:
Personally I'm ok with the GH5 eating more power, especially when using the audio adapter. It means only needing one type of battery vs the gimbal, audio recorder and camera. Now a single battery type gets you through a shoot and the biggest advantage is you only have to pay attention to that one battery in the GH5 LCD. No more keeping an eye on multiple devices to see when they will die. My Tascam DR-60 hogs through four AA batteries and it is a huge pain to swap them out and keep an eye on them every hour or so while keeping an eye on the camera and actually shoot. With the GH5 you can remove the gimbal (in some cases) and audio recorder and just worry about one device and one battery. That is well worth the tradeoff of how quickly they die which is still impressive at over an hour. If it was under an hour then it would be useless for a lot of productions.
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Completely agree with you here. The simplicity of using one battery for everything means less stress for me on set. I'm a solo shooter for all kinds of projects, so I need as much brain power directed to the client and the work as possible. A few years ago, I shot a no-budget indie feature with the GH4 and Tascam DR-70D. I distinctly remember being frustrated on set with swapping AA's constantly. So far, the audio unit on the GH5 has been a godsend despite the drop in battery life.
 
I'll take the added benefits of the image and camera as a whole over the battery life. Just add 3 or 4 batteries to the bag (which I already have from the Gh4) and done and done. Need to shoot a long take like at a stage performance, buy an AC adapter and plug it into the wall.
 
Well i purchased two of these for the GH4 Newmowa BLF19 Batterys,that camera did not get a great deal of use but i now use them with my GH5,they last as long as the one that came with the camera,its a pity battery life is down compared to the GH4.
 
Hi

Yes IBIS is on even when off.

To see why, if you remove the lens with the camera off, look at the sensor and move the camera around, you will see the sensor is completely loose. Or just shake the camera when it's off and here it rattle. Now wonder how you will wet clean that sensor, just don't get it dirty with anything that can't be blown off :-)

So even if IBIS is disabled because the camera is on a tripod, IBIS is still needing to be powered to run the electro magnets that float the sensor even to hold it static with no compensation.

Panasonic could have had added a mechanism to lock the sensor using some mechanical means so IBIS could be powered off completely when tripod mounted, but I expect space is at a premium or it added to much to the cost or both.

Regards

Phil
 
The new SMALL HD monitor has uses ubiquitous Sony batteries and has a power pass through with dummy battery...
talks about that 50 seconds in:

 
conraddmb118 said:
I shot on the GH4 for three years, and I, like everyone, was pretty amazed at how well it performed and seemed to never die. I think I could shoot video for like 3 hours before I had to swap. With the GH5, I am lucky if I get just over an hour. It's a pretty big let down, given that that was one of the things that made the GH4 stand out from the Sony a7 series... Anyone have tips or other input? I messaged Panasonic, and told them about tests I've done with the exact same settings with GH4/5 (C4K 24p) and the GH4 was lasting almost 3x as long. They told me some stuff about the GH5 having more advanced xyz and that's the reason.
Click to expand...

You need to have owned cameras like the Sony A6300 and you'd have a totally different opinion. Coming from Sonys, this is a God send.
 
external battery options for the GH5?

external battery options for the GH5?

Yep, the GH2/3/4 battery life was always impressive, and spoiled me! I'm lucky if I get 75 minutes with my GH5, even with IBIS, AF, waveform and other features disabled. I had to change batteries 75 minutes into a 90 minute performance shoot and missed footage while changing batteries. I was stunned that it didn't last the full 90 minutes!

Sooooo, the next step is to find an external battery solution. I already have a dummy battery and AC adapter from my GH4. Is there a safe and reliable way to use the dummy battery with a large external battery? I've seen a product made by a company called Dolgin, but its $109 for a cheap battery plate and cable. The Blakcmagic Power Station seems bulky and quite expensive. I'm wondering if I can adapt a 9V USB charger to work with the dummy battery. I don't want to put my camera at risk, so any advice on what to do, or not do, would be greatly appreciated.

conraddmb118 said:
I shot on the GH4 for three years, and I, like everyone, was pretty amazed at how well it performed and seemed to never die. I think I could shoot video for like 3 hours before I had to swap. With the GH5, I am lucky if I get just over an hour. It's a pretty big let down, given that that was one of the things that made the GH4 stand out from the Sony a7 series... Anyone have tips or other input? I messaged Panasonic, and told them about tests I've done with the exact same settings with GH4/5 (C4K 24p) and the GH4 was lasting almost 3x as long. They told me some stuff about the GH5 having more advanced xyz and that's the reason.
Click to expand...
 
Atomos Power Station power supply

Atomos Power Station power supply

UPDATE: I bought the Atomos (not Black Magic Design) Power Station, and it works well for extending battery life and powering multiple devices. B&H had these on a daily special sale for $199, so I grabbed one and glad I did. The Power Station adds some substantial bulk and extra cables to the GH5, but for shooting long events on a tripod it is great. I haven't determined how long it will run, but it will easily power the GH5 and my monitor (Black Magic Video Assist and Atomos Shogun Inferno). With batteries attached it is somewhat cumbersome, so I don't think I will use it for hand held shooting. It comes with two batteries, adapters for multiple cameras including Panasonic GH3/4/5 and SONY cameras and a power cable that fits my Shogun. You can charge batteries while powering a camera and monitor. Build quality is all plastic, so I'm not sure how durable it is. Overall, I think its a flexible power solution, and worth considering.

davidp158 said:
Yep, the GH2/3/4 battery life was always impressive, and spoiled me! I'm lucky if I get 75 minutes with my GH5, even with IBIS, AF, waveform and other features disabled. I had to change batteries 75 minutes into a 90 minute performance shoot and missed footage while changing batteries. I was stunned that it didn't last the full 90 minutes!

Sooooo, the next step is to find an external battery solution. I already have a dummy battery and AC adapter from my GH4. Is there a safe and reliable way to use the dummy battery with a large external battery? I've seen a product made by a company called Dolgin, but its $109 for a cheap battery plate and cable. The Blackmagic Power Station seems bulky and quite expensive. I'm wondering if I can adapt a 9V USB charger to work with the dummy battery. I don't want to put my camera at risk, so any advice on what to do, or not do, would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
 
Luckily batteries are cheap... I have 12 wasabi batteries. Some are hit and miss but most of the batteries are great. Either way it was $180 for 12 batteries and 6 chargers...
 
filmguy123 said:
Luckily batteries are cheap... I have 12 wasabi batteries. Some are hit and miss but most of the batteries are great. Either way it was $180 for 12 batteries and 6 chargers...
Click to expand...

Agreed! I use a mix of Wasabi and Kastar batteries, and they have been as reliable as the OEM Panasonic batteries.
 
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