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I have a Beef with Camera Reviews

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
You know - it kind of gets irritating when you do a Google Search to find user information and reviews on camera gear - - - and it is so misleading that it affects your enthusiasm for a particular product.

Case in point (besides reviews that I ignored when purchasing my Macbook Air and a few other great investments that I use) is my new Olympus E-PL5. That was the camera that I was purchasing when I returned from an 8 month massive photo shoot in Nicaragua. But I was also concerned about investing in micro 4/3 lenses, if use of this camera and future EM style bodies - would not be useful purchases for my wedding and portrait business.

For those purposes, battery life is quite important. Yes I can purchase and do purchase extra batteries to swap in and out when one dies. But it proved to be a little discouraging when several reviews from supposed dependable sources, stated "battery life" as one of the Cons. Even using terms like poor battery life - only getting 300 or 350 shots per charge. Well, irregardless I bought the E-PL5 last week. I got to put the battery longevity to test on Saturday night at my daughters 10'th wedding anniversary.

I really didn't pay attention to the battery until heading home tonight and downloading about 20 shots that I took today. I headed into Lightroom and realized that I shot 660 photographs at Roslyn's anniversary. Those with around 20 snaps today, are certainly in a ballpark that I am comfortable with. And are far more than the measly numbers that the reviews sites (Blog and Youtube) purport. Checking my camera just now - - - I see that the battery life after all of that shooting - still shows in full green on the camera screen. So what is up with that!


I needed an upgrade because my E-PL3 is simply worn out and not functioning dependably when travelling - and so the reviews didn't sway me in this instance. But they do have an effect on you and do stop people who are concerned with accurate reports of such features - to miss out by moving to another product. Just my rant for the moment. :frown::smile:
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Rob,

It might be that you set your screen to turn off with less delay, that your screen is not so bright or else you don't chimp much. Or else, the reviewers are doing something pretty strange, like running onboard flash with each shot!

Asher
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Rob,

It might be that you set your screen to turn off with less delay, that your screen is not so bright or else you don't chimp much. Or else, the reviewers are doing something pretty strange, like running onboard flash with each shot!

Asher

Not just with a camera review. I was a little miffed, because I went through a similar situation when I purchased my basic Macbook Air several moths ago. Online Reviews and Reports caused me to almost give up on the purchase because "it would not be suitable for Lightroom" and "would not be suitable for video projects". I can reaffirm that the basic 1.3 Ghz Macbook Air with SSD hard drive - - - indeed handles Lightroom without issues. I regularly work with a 500MB layered file with thousands of shapes (objects) on each layer - in Photoshop CS6. It gets a little slow at times with that file, but it handles anything I need to do. And for the rest of my lesser Photoshop needs, I can do anything I want. I am also running Final Cut Pro X with no issues for months now.


But concerning the battery life - - - they are just plain ridiculous in their underrating. In checking a few of the Review Sites that listed 360 shots battery life - - - I started noticing that some use the term "Olympus rating". One review site (Imaging Resource) states "The rated 360 shots per charge . . . The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions." Really - - - nothing to do with reality right?

So why can't the reviewers just do their own test and provide real life values that are practical and useful to normal shooters. Instead they seem to be just restating a number someone else claims instead of spending a day or two in real life shooting that would prove useful. Makes one wonder how valid anything they say is. There does seem to be a lot of just Copy and Paste what someone else reports. Shame.


I can confidently report that battery life in "normal use" is awesome in this E-PL5 camera.

---------
 

James Lemon

Well-known member
You know - it kind of gets irritating when you do a Google Search to find user information and reviews on camera gear - - - and it is so misleading that it affects your enthusiasm for a particular product.

Case in point (besides reviews that I ignored when purchasing my Macbook Air and a few other great investments that I use) is my new Olympus E-PL5. That was the camera that I was purchasing when I returned from an 8 month massive photo shoot in Nicaragua. But I was also concerned about investing in micro 4/3 lenses, if use of this camera and future EM style bodies - would not be useful purchases for my wedding and portrait business.

For those purposes, battery life is quite important. Yes I can purchase and do purchase extra batteries to swap in and out when one dies. But it proved to be a little discouraging when several reviews from supposed dependable sources, stated "battery life" as one of the Cons. Even using terms like poor battery life - only getting 300 or 350 shots per charge. Well, irregardless I bought the E-PL5 last week. I got to put the battery longevity to test on Saturday night at my daughters 10'th wedding anniversary.

I really didn't pay attention to the battery until heading home tonight and downloading about 20 shots that I took today. I headed into Lightroom and realized that I shot 660 photographs at Roslyn's anniversary. Those with around 20 snaps today, are certainly in a ballpark that I am comfortable with. And are far more than the measly numbers that the reviews sites (Blog and Youtube) purport. Checking my camera just now - - - I see that the battery life after all of that shooting - still shows in full green on the camera screen. So what is up with that!


I needed an upgrade because my E-PL3 is simply worn out and not functioning dependably when travelling - and so the reviews didn't sway me in this instance. But they do have an effect on you and do stop people who are concerned with accurate reports of such features - to miss out by moving to another product. Just my rant for the moment. :frown::smile:

I guess it all has to do with how many features one has turned on and the amount of chimping one does.
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
I guess that for me, the use of the same number 360 shots per battery life by the majority of different review sites - suggests to me that they have made no effort to find out what the battery life is based on their own usage - - - so their respected review (opinion you might say) is hearsay (copy and paste from someone else who used someone else's review who used someone else's review or data) and practically useless related to this feature of the camera, and can have a detrimental impact that is based on nothing but what others write down as fact.


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Michael Nagel

Well-known member
I guess that for me, the use of the same number 360 shots per battery life by the majority of different review sites - suggests to me that they have made no effort to find out what the battery life is based on their own usage - - - so their respected review (opinion you might say) is hearsay (copy and paste from someone else who used someone else's review who used someone else's review or data) and practically useless related to this feature of the camera, and can have a detrimental impact that is based on nothing but what others write down as fact.
Most testers are happy to refer to the results of the battery life testing according to the CIPA standard (link goes to pdf, reading recommended before answering).
The reasons for this are quite simple:
For a test which can be rightfully called a test you need a sample size which is statistically significant.
Hint: five is not a statistically significant number of samples (this would mean five cameras equipped with one battery each).
The test must be conducted in a well defined way. This means definition of the way you shoot photos, the actions inbetween, the rest times (very important for battery testing).
There is no 'one size fits it all' profile for this test, so an artificial profile was chosen, hoping to cover the most frequent user profile(s).
For anyone wanting to conduct such a test this means spending some time, money is rarely spent on the equipment tested and the sample size is usually one, maybe replaced with a different unit if it does not behave as intended. This happens in a large number of cases of camera reviews.
The ones who are honest about it cite CIPA as reference for the battery life testing.

So what do you expect?
Do you want to introduce your way of camera use as a new user profile to be tested? You can dreamt, but you will not get it except maybe someone who is blogging might give it a try.
You expect that camera testers will actually test the camera thoroughly and publish these results?
Many camera tests (this is for the measurement part of testing) rely on tests made by specialized labs, there are not many of these...
The reason why fewer people/newspapers test on their own is the complexity and the cost of such a test and the delay these create for the publication and the fact that online publications are often free, there is a pressure to spend less.

If you look at the standard and compare it with your shooting habits, you can actually see the tendency of battery use compared with the CIPA standard and see if there is a tendency i whatever direction and make an informed decision based on the test result and the way you shoot compared with the CIPA standard.

Best regards,
Michael
 
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