I can't say there is rapid battery drain since what I have seen occuring as before has been reproduced with a battery that was not fully charged when I inserted it after the firmware update. All I can seem to conclude is as the battery drains during use, the battery indicator seems to still have two different opinions as to how much battery power remains..not much power left in movie mode but much left in other modes. As you said, it may just be the firmware moves the problem farther down the road toward battery depletion, i.e. the problems don't occur until more battery drain has occurred during usage. In a sense, that is an "improvement" and may satisfy some of the SX280 owners.
As the camera operates with the firmware update, I still feel the battery level indicator is unreliable. For example, with some battery drain already present, the camera still reports a full battery in manual mode but gives the flashing red low battery warning in movie mode. This past weekend I used the camera for business related purposes and shot approximately 6 two minute videos and 10-15 still shots on a full battery. We wanted another video shot and I asked a colleague to shoot the video. I turned the camera on when in auto mode and the camera reported a full battery. I changed the mode to movie mode and the red flashing light came on. I handed the camera to my colleague and asked her to ignore the the flashing red light and shoot the video. She came back five minutes later and told me there was no video. The video started and when she tried to zoom in on a moving object, the camera shut down with a "recharge the battery" warning. She turned the camera back on and tried again with the same result. Luckily we didn't absolutely need the video, but could have. This, of course, happened with the firmware 1.0.1.0, but I can still see this happening with firmware 1.0.2.0, just at a farther point in the battery drain, and again, that may be enough for some if it occurs when they feel it is time to recharge the batterry anyway.
I now have a full battery in the camera and will try to test with that to see if there is any difference with regard to when, in the battery drain, the battery level indicator becomes unreliable and if it is significant.
@UnionStation wrote:
You're the best, videophan! Just to clarify, is it your impression that the sx280 is still experiencing rapid battery drain? I'm wondering whether this firmware update simply lowers the tolerances for the red flashing light and automatic shutoff, rather than addressing the sapping of power that caused the problem in the first place. Is anyone who installed the firmware update seeing an actual camera shutdown, as happened with the original firmware?
