topic Re: Sony A7iii battery drain problem in Alpha & NEX interchangeable lens cameras

Sony A7iii battery drain problem

Geoff147 — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 19:58:45 GMT

I have recently bought a 2nd hand Sony a7iii. The battery appears to be draining very quickly.

I have updated the firmware, switched to airplane mode, reduced the brightness of the screen, altered auto power off to 10 secs.

I am still seeing the battery drain very quickly. I have both a Sony NP Z100 battery and a third party battery. Both are draining at a similar rate.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Re: Sony A7iii battery drain problem

danardeng — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 20:43:15 GMT

Can you explain what you mean with “very quick”?

Have you resetted the camera just to be sure to not have any settings that can drain energy?

Otherwise there are two options: or your batteryes are old and exhausted, or there is an hardware problem on camera or lens.

Re: Sony A7iii battery drain problem

Geoff147 — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 21:41:49 GMT

My previous camera was an old Canon eos 600d. The battery lasted a long time. I've just a bit surprised that the Sony a7iii was draining down to empty in a day without taking too many photos.

I have been using a Sony Zeiss 50mm 1.4 lens which I wonder if this has been consuming more battery power. I've just replaced it with the Sony 50 1.8 stock lens to see if this is less hungry.

If not I'll try your suggestion and reset to factory settings, just in case a setting is causing a power drain.

Re: Sony A7iii battery drain problem

danardeng — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 21:55:06 GMT

You can’t compare reflex battery consumption with mirrorless.

Reflex camera doesn’t have any consumption when they doesn’t shoot.. mirrors cameras yes: just the ability to capture liveview and display in a lcd requires a lot of energy

Re: Sony A7iii battery drain problem

RayH60 — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 11:13:23 GMT

I have just got a A7R3, l'm coming from Canon also. Did not switch the camera to off, next day no battery charge left. The camera is set to auto switch off after 1 minute, why is the battery flat. On my Canon 5DSR, it auto switches off after 2 minutes, there is no battery drain, if left for a day. Canon l use liveview.

Re: Sony A7iii battery drain problem

RayH60 — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 12:21:12 GMT

Not correct l use Liveview all the time on my DSLR.

Re: Sony A7iii battery drain problem

RayH60 — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 12:58:20 GMT

Do you have IR remote on?

l found out that If the camera is set to IR remote mode, it will never power down since it must be on to register IR input.

So my Sony camera is never going to sleep. What a stupid idea, Canon don't have this problem.

Also l had to reset the time and date, which l don't understand. Only had that on Canon, when l have not used them, for many months.