My apologies in-advance, for the long-winded post…
Having weird issues with both Sony bodies; purchased new early 2018. I’ve shot with another mirrorless system before Sony, so I’m well aware of the battery drain of mirrorless compared to DSLR’s. On my now sold Canon system, I could (not on purpose), leave a body turned on, unused and in the bag for a week, and the battery level would barely drop. Camera is on, not used, goes to sleep, and draws virtually zero power until I press the shutter.
On BOTH Sony bodies, the following has happened numerous times this year. I turn cameras off, put in Pelican case for my shoot the next morning. The next morning, the battery on the camera is dead; not all the time, but enough to cause significant irritation. Screen says “battery exhausted”. I can’t see how either body would have switched power “on” while in the case. EVEN if a body was switched on, the body should go to sleep and draw minimal power, correct? Last week, I made certain both bodies were off, in the case. 2 hours later, I got to the church to shoot a blasted wedding, opened up the case and low-and-behold, my A7III was warm to the touch and the battery was exhausted! Put in my spare and luckily it was a Catholic service
so I had an hour to let the dead battery charge up close to 100%.
I thought it might be an issue to send bodies back to Sony, but BOTH react intermittently the same way. NOW, I leave all power stored out of the body, until I get to location and then load. The frustrating thing is, when I’m using the bodies throughout the day, they do NOT exhibit excessive drain, just normal drain for the newer A7III/A7RIII batteries.
Any thoughts?