When a body starts shutting down and a full pack lasts half as long as it used to, the usual cause is an aged battery, with body settings and environment coming second. Work in this order: rule out settings and environment first, run one full cycle to recalibrate the gauge, then swap in a known-good pack to see which side the problem sits on. If several packs all run short in the same body, look at the body. If only one pack runs short, that pack has aged.
Rule Out Three Non-Ageing Causes First
- Cold: capacity drops noticeably below freezing, and around -10°C you may get roughly half of what you would at room temperature. Fast drain in winter usually recovers once the pack warms up; the coping strategy is in winter runtime.
- Power-hungry settings: a bright screen for composing, burst shooting, 4K recording, constant autofocus and playback all raise draw, so the frame count falls accordingly. Drop the screen brightness and cut playback for a day and see whether the numbers come back.
- An inaccurate gauge: a jumping percentage makes it look like runtime collapsed. Do one full charge-and-discharge cycle before you judge anything; the method is in calibrating the charge display.
Six Signs of an Aged Pack
| Symptom | Likelihood of ageing | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Drops to one bar after a few dozen frames from full | High | Usable capacity is well below the rating |
| Jumps from two bars straight to shutdown | High | Discharge curve collapses at the end; resistance is up |
| Cuts out at power-on or during a burst | High | Voltage sags under load and trips protection |
| Runs clearly hotter than packs from the same batch | Medium-high | Rising resistance produces more heat |
| Charges suspiciously fast, then dies just as fast | High | It is accepting less energy in the first place |
| Swollen or deformed shell | Safety issue | Stop using it and handle it as a safety issue |
Note how the first, third and fifth rows combine. A pack that charges fast, empties fast and runs hot is aged, and you can treat that as settled.
How to Locate the Problem With a Swap Test
- Swap the pack: fit a known-good battery into the same body. If runtime returns to normal, the original pack was the problem.
- Swap the body: put the suspect pack into another body of the same model. If it still runs short, it is the pack.
- Change the conditions: test indoors at room temperature with the power-hungry settings off, to remove cold and settings from the equation.
- Count frames: log the shot count for two packs across the same outing. A written comparison beats an impression.
You do not need to-the-frame precision. You only need to see whether one pack is clearly behind the other. Official CIPA figures usually sit in the 500–700 frame range, while real-world use commonly lands closer to 60–80% of the rating, and lower again for video and bursts.
How Much Life Is Left: The Ageing Curve
Lithium cells typically retain around 80% of their capacity after 300–500 cycles, so “shorter after a year” is expected rather than alarming, and by roughly the two-year mark replacement deserves serious thought. Charging two or three times a week puts most people at that point somewhere between a year and a half and two years; heavier users arrive sooner. The full curve is laid out in capacity loss and replacement timing.
Situations Where You Should Just Replace It
- Ahead of a wedding, commercial shoot or trip, when one pack is clearly underperforming.
- Shutdowns during bursts or recording that have already cost you frames.
- Obvious heat while charging, or any swelling in the shell.
- Two-plus years of service, or cycle count approaching 300–500.
Heavy users should keep at least two packs in rotation so no single pack becomes the single point of failure in a shoot.
Habits That Slow Ageing
- Top up opportunistically rather than running to zero. Frequent deep discharge is hard on cells.
- Store long-term at roughly 40–60% charge, cool and dry at about 15–25°C, with a top-up every three months.
- Avoid leaving packs at 100%, especially in a hot place.
- Number your packs and rotate them, so none sits idle long enough to self-discharge into trouble.
- Keep terminals clean and dry. Wipe them down after coastal or wet shoots.
FAQ
It shuts down, then powers back up showing charge. Is the pack dead?
Probably aged. Start-up and burst shooting draw high current; voltage sags under that load and trips protection, then recovers once the pack rests. That rebound is a classic ageing signature.
Can a new pack shut the camera down too?
Yes, under high load in burst or 4K, or in the cold. Warm it up and retest at lower load. If it still cuts out in normal conditions, contact the seller.
Will recalibration bring capacity back?
No. A full cycle improves the accuracy of the display, not the energy the cell holds. If the real frame count is still short afterwards, the cell has genuinely degraded.
Can the body itself cause shutdowns?
It can. Firmware glitches, a heavy lens focus motor, or heat protection in hot weather can all shut a body down. Use the swap test to separate the two.
Replacement is cheaper than most people assume. YO’s NP-FZ100 compatible battery is rated around 2280mAh / 7.2V / 16.4Wh: about $17.89 for a single pack, about $22.93 with one charger, about $36.74 for two batteries and a charger. If you want more headroom, the TNP-FZ100 is the 2400mAh / roughly 17.3Wh version, and long wedding days are worth planning around two or three spares per body. Bulk replacement goes through wholesale enquiry, where orders over 100 units are quoted per batch.