Sony DSC-P8 Poor battery performance

I have a Sony DSC-P8 which is just under 3 years old.

The battery performance is very poor. When the battery is fully
charged I can usual take around 30 to 40 pictures before the battery
is dead and the camera shuts down. If I take pictures with the flash
this is reduced to around 20 to 30 pictures.

I have also noticed that the time to recharge the flash between photos
is a long time. Sometimes it takes upto 10 seconds. I don't remember
the camera doing this when I bought it.

When the camera turns off I can usual turn it back on again, take a
couple of pictures and then it turns off again.

When I connect the charger the display comes up with around 25 minutes
and then charges till it gets to 55mins. It seems the camera is
shutting down when the battery is still half charged. Is this normal?

I bought a spare battery on ebay last year (not a sony) and this shows
the same behaviour as my existing Sony genuine battery.

Is the camera faulty, or should I just buy a new Genuine Sony FC10 or
FC11 battery?

Cheers,

Matt

Matthew Bailey wrote:
I have a Sony DSC-P8 which is just under 3 years old.

The battery performance is very poor. When the battery is fully
charged I can usual take around 30 to 40 pictures before the battery
is dead and the camera shuts down. If I take pictures with the flash
this is reduced to around 20 to 30 pictures.

I have also noticed that the time to recharge the flash between photos
is a long time. Sometimes it takes upto 10 seconds. I don't remember
the camera doing this when I bought it.

When the camera turns off I can usual turn it back on again, take a
couple of pictures and then it turns off again.

When I connect the charger the display comes up with around 25 minutes
and then charges till it gets to 55mins. It seems the camera is
shutting down when the battery is still half charged. Is this normal?

I bought a spare battery on ebay last year (not a sony) and this shows
the same behaviour as my existing Sony genuine battery.

Is the camera faulty, or should I just buy a new Genuine Sony FC10 or
FC11 battery?

Similar thing here with DSC-F505 and NP-FS11.
First of all Li-Ion batteries seem to degrade much faster over time than
NiCd/NiMH, and it doesn't make much of a difference if they are used or just
sitting in a drawer. After doing quite some measurements on my several
NP-FS11 I came to the conclusion that Sony's infoLithium system (at least as
it is implemented in the NP-FS11) is real bad. When discharging the fully
charged battery all the way down to 3.0V outside my camera (using my battery
test equipment) it delivers its rated capacity, but when using it in my F505
it shows the same effects you describe.

Possible solutions (sometimes they work, sometimes not): (1) Clean
electrical contacts on both camera and battery. (2) Exercise the battery
over several cycles (discharge over a resistor. Internal circuitry will
prevent over-discharge) to make infoLithium "learn" what the available
capacity is.

I took these consequences: (1) Use a single Li-Ion battery, and use it
regularly. (2) Never again buy a camera which doesn't accept AA cells.

Check the "Sony Talk Forum" for more information:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1009

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