Off / On

[fStop16]

Just. curious. While you are out shooting photos, how often do you turn your camera of and back on again. Let's assume you are out walking about for two hours. What you do, how does it affect your battery life. Thanks for any replies.

 

[WaltP]

I have trained myself to turn it off after each shot. But now, with the Oly E-M5.2 and the Quick Sleep mode, I have started experimenting with leaving it on. Walking for only a couple of hours is no problem either way. Most modern cameras should be able to stay on for at least 2 hours, unless you are recording video.

 

[Bushboy]

My M5ii would have a complete exhausted battery after 2hrs on time.
I haven’t tried sleep mode. I turn it off, if I ain’t using it.

 

[Acraftman]

It depends of course on what you are shooting but if I think its going to be 5 or 10 minutes between shots I will turn it off if I am doing action type shots and I am just waiting 1 or 2 minutes I will keep it turned on and keep hitting the release button to keep it awake.On my em5mkll if I have the screen closed it seems to go to sleep really fast.I have been doing that for three years with this camera and haven't had any issues so far.

 

[pondball]

I Rarely turn it off while shooting during trips.

Only times i turn it off are:
- when I changing glass
- when I change batteries (lol... cuz I refuse to turn it off between shots)
- when I take out an SD card
- at the end of the day or when it goes back in my sling bag

I’d rather change batteries than constantly flip the power switch. Been involved with electronics too long to know that the first things to go are flimsy switches, on/off or otherwise.

 

[Drdul]

I walk around the city with my Pen-F in my right hand, turned on full time. I get 800+ shots in a couple of hours before the battery runs out (I use genuine Olympus BLN-1s, not generics, as I was only getting half the battery life with generics, plus a couple were starting to swell a little bit).

 

[davidzvi]

Often, maybe not between each shot, but close.

It's one of the reason I don't get along with power zoom lenses or most compacts. Really wish more would adopt the Fuji X10/20/30 system (manual zoom lens with power switch on/off when lens is closed).

 

[wjiang]

Off after each shooting opportunity.
Except while out birding, where the whole time is an opportunity. Then I don't turn it off.

 

[Thai-Mike]

OFF after a shot. Except if I know I'll get more shoots in a 5 minutes time frame

 

[Sleepy Capybara]

My muscle memory turns the camera off (started from other MLCs) after almost every shot. I don't shoot too many shots back to back anyway so I get chance to turn it off. That habit is getting stronger. I even turn off my DSLR now a days :/

 

[ac12]

As mentioned, battery life stinks, so I "try" to power down when I can.
But the position of the power switch on the left deck is so inconvenient, that I tend to leave it ON.

It also depending on what I am shooting and the situation.
If I am shooting a sport, it is likely to stay on for a LONG period of time.

I might power down when walking from one part of the field to the other, and half-time and between games.​

On vacation and on the move, I will tend to leave it ON a lot more, cuz I don't always have time to wait for it to power up for a quick grab shot.
When there is definite idle time, I usually power down.

Because of the poor battery life, I always carry spare batterIES; four for my EM1 (which gets heavy use), and two for my EM10. So I don't have to worry about saving battery power, I just change batteries.

 

[Bytesmiths]

I leave my OM-D E-M1 Mark II on most of the time it is in-use.

BUT I have all the power-saving parameters set to their most conservative. So the end result is that the camera self-powers-down after a fairly short period of inactivity. So I often find myself "reverse cycling" the power, turning it off and then on again.

I manage to get about 800 shots to a charge.

 

[panamike]

Wouldnt turn my EM1MK11 off during a 2/3 hour spell of shooting.

 

[tkbslc]

I don't think I ever turn mine off. I just let it go to sleep.

 

[Gy Rob]

I let mine sleep then just jab any button as I bring it up to my eye to bring it back to life .

 

[stagor]

Nothing to do with power saving but, I often will switch off and back on to make my camera do a reset, then I know without checking I have my initial settings, aperture priority, iso200, f5,6, expo comp 0, single shot, afs, yes I know switching from c1 to c2 and back has the same result.

 

[fStop16]

Thanks to all for your replies. Almost seems like 50/50. I am experimenting with EVF only or LCD. On my EM10 I do not like where to switch from one to the other is located. To bad you can not assign that to some other function button. Again thanks to all. This is why this is a great forum.

 

[Tony JD Harding]

I also worry about life of the on/off switch. I prefer to leave the camera on. One thing I sometimes do is switch off the eye detection on the evf. Stops the camera “waking up” if you dangle it near your body. I do this especially when using the “pancake” 14-42 lens with its motorised parking, as constant retracting and extending the lens must add wear and use loads of battery.

 

[fStop16]

I also worry about life of the on/off switch. I prefer to leave the camera on. One thing I sometimes do is switch off the eye detection on the evf. Stops the camera “waking up” if you dangle it near your body. I do this especially when using the “pancake” 14-42 lens with its motorised parking, as constant retracting and extending the lens must add wear and use loads of battery.

Tony, I do the same thing, since outdoors I use the EVF almost all of the time. Since you can view the image, after taking the shot by pressing the view button. I would rather change batteries rather than to pay for replacement of an on/off switch.

 

[PakkyT]

Unlike the old 4/3rds dSLR days where it was number of photos taken rather than on-time that determined battery life, with micro-43 I have got into the habit of turning the camera back off after shooting what I am going to shoot on my E-M1. Even when the battery is blinking red at me, doing this can get my a lot more photos than if I just left it on and allowed it to sleep. I also found back when I first got it that powering on was no slower (and maybe a hair faster?) then bringing it out of sleep. But it has been a few FW revisions since I tried it, so I should give it another look.

Edit: just checked and power-up and wake-up are nearly identical (E-M1 with 12-100 PRO mounted using original Oly battery and powering up into the EVF, not the back LCD). Waking from sleep is maybe a tiny bit faster, 1.57s vs. 1.44s (where the difference is probably lost in the +/- of my average reaction time hitting my mobile phones stop watch Start/stop). I did notice I had my sleep timer set for 3 minutes, so lowered it to one-minute.