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IQ160 low battery perfomance - images gone.

Pemihan

Well-known member
I got the chance to put my newly acquired IQ160 through it's paces during a busy week in southern and northern Arizona.

One thing that scared me like **** was when I was shooting with a somewhat low battery when suddenly I noticed that the image counter was 4 knowing that it should be in the hundreds..

A lot of things went through my mind in a second among other if I had accidental reformatted the card in some very strange way (the other things I better not put in writing)

Well it turned out that after replacing the battery with a fresh one everything was back to normal and all images were present.

Besides that it seems to me like the back is performing rather slowly and flaky with a low battery. Is that normal?

My Aptus-II 7 worked without any hiccups up until the battery went dead..

Another thing was the heat - It seems like the hotter the ambient temperature was the slower the backs worked. That included the touch screen and the time it took to show things like focus mask and blown highlights. I was working in 80-107 Fahrenheit / 27-42 Celsius which is well within the official working conditions.
It might be that it is perfectly normal though..

Ohh and did I mention that I really really really miss the feature from the Aptus where you can input the focal lenght and it will be written in the exif of all images until you change or delete it. (I'm using the back on a tech cam with wake up cable) Phase One, please please put that in the next firmware update...!
 
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Leigh

New member
"Low" is a relative term that must be defined for each individual piece of equipment.

All electronics will fail to function if the power drops too "low".
Most gear has a sensor that provides an orderly shutdown under such conditions, just like the OFF button.

When the voltage approaches that turn-off threshold you should get some indication.
Perhaps that's what the zeroed image count is meant to do, although that's pretty bizarre.

- Leigh
 

Pemihan

Well-known member
Well I could shoot new images, thats' how I noticed that all of a sudden it only showed the latest 4 images including the one I just shot.

Maybe it's perfectly normal but it made me uncomfortable.
 
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Paul2660

Well-known member
Yes, when the battery gets low all type of strange things can happen. I have noticed a similar type of behavior to what happened to you. The back suddenly stated that there were about 1/2 of the images that should have been there.

You can also sometimes get a false positive where the the image is displayed, but doesn't get written to the card. I have learned that if you don't hear the beep, odds are the image is not on the card or PC if you are shooting tethered.

With tethered shooting, this gets even a bit more involved. You have to have a battery in the back, even though all the image are being written to the PC. As the battery gets to the last bar and may even blink, sometimes the image won't transfer to the PC even though you can see it on the LCD of the back, zoom in on it etc.

Other things that tend to happen is if you are trying to zoom in, with a low battery, the zoom may go past 100% or get stuck in the pizelated mode. In fact many times in the field this is my first clue my battery has gotten too low.

Phase One is coming out with a new 3400 millamp battery. It was spoken about on LuLa earlier this week. DT has them, but are not shipping them yet due to some problems that came up.

The 3400 should give you about 35% or so more liffe.

Paul
 

gazwas

Active member
And I thought Phase backs were ultra reliable? Never had any of these issues on the workhorse P backs.

Imagine if you were a high end wedding photographer (no tethering) and investing all that money in a nice new IQ250 only to find on your first outing that you think half your images have disappeared....... But not really????
 

etrump

Well-known member
This is known problem with the IQ series, especially with the 2600mha batteries. You should check the firmware version and upgrade if it is not current.

Being able to enter exif data prior to capture would be fantastic. I've asked for that as well as being able to change ISO from the playback screen.

I believe there is a thread on this forum that you can post suggestions but it seems unless your in the P1 loop suggestions reach deaf ears.
 

Pemihan

Well-known member
Thanks guys, I have the latest firmware and use 2900mha batteries.
I have posted some suggestions on the thread you mention Ed, lets hope it reaches the right person(s).
 

flyrcairplanes

New member
I am glad to hear they are going to be making longer lasting batteries. I just bought 2 new ones because the IQ160 is a battery hog. Might be a good idea to also open a support ticket on the Phaseone website to make suggestions for firmware updates. I know that Phase checks their forum posts and support tickets regularly.
 

johnnygoesdigital

New member
Another glowing review for MFD...
i'd contact your dealer - for what you've invested there should be no compromises or fingers crossed moments.




When the voltage approaches that turn-off threshold you should get some indication.
Perhaps that's what the zeroed image count is meant to do, although that's pretty bizarre.


- Leigh

It's called the battery icon and it supposed to tell you the remaining charge so you can switch with a fully charged battery, it's pretty basic stuff. If shot counts start going backwards then i'd be contacting the dealer. I'd use caution shooting in excessive heat if the batteries get very warm. Image noise will be obvious and long exposures usually require a dark frame, so even longer power duration.

Perhaps you can contact Doug at DT. They have a banner Ad on top.
 

Pemihan

Well-known member
The battery icon indeed showed that the battery was low, so I would have switched the battery for a fresh one shortly after and also did but the image counter stuff happened before I did so.
Maybe I just need to learn to switch the battery sooner, but it would be nice to get a warning saying "Battery is to low for the back to continue normal operation" or something like that.

Regarding heat it was well within the official operating conditions which goes up to 50 Celcius / 122 Fahrenheit but I can understand if things slow down in extreme heat / cold. It is after all electronics we're dealing with here.
 
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torger

Active member
It's probably difficult to make electronics behave stable with low battery. My Aptus 75 also has some occasional strange low battery behavior, worst case it renders the CF card unusable with the back until reformatted (no lost images though, and card is read fine on the computer, I just need to bring extra cards when in the field so I can continue on a new if this rare condition happens).
 
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