Genuine Sony battery / Z7U problem?
 

Hey,

Just got back from shooting a lecture today with two Z7U's. Both cameras were shooting with fully charged genuine Sony F-970 batteries. They are about a year old and in good condition.

One of the cameras had been in standby for about 10mins. and just before we were about to shoot the following message appeared on camera's LCD screen "This battery doesn't work on this camera" with a C:04 error code. I checked the Z7U manual, and the error message means you need to put an Infolithium battery on the camera. Well, the battery IS a genuine Sony Infolithium battery as purchased from B&H in 2008.

My concern is that I almost lost one of the cameras on the shoot today due to the "paranoid" nature of the Sony "fake battery" sensor. Like you, I can't afford to have a camera shut down needlessly because of a false positive reading when trying to detect non-Sony batteries in use. I find the Sony on-camera lights really picky with batteries -- but this is the first time one of our two Z7U's "spit out" a real Sony battery.

If this has happened to others, maybe Sony should relax the security on their camcorders. The camera is useless if it won't even stay powered on when you are using a genuine - and very costly - Sony battery.

After returning from the shoot I reattached the battery and got the same message and camera shut down. I took off the battery and tried again, and it's working fine. I don't get it!!!???

Any thoughts?

Thanks . . .

Ian

I have had 1 problem with 1 battery on 1 Sony camcorder, once. I was using a friend's FX1000 with one of my Sony 970 batteries and it displayed a "Battery too hot" warning. The battery seemed fine and it wasn't any hotter than room temperture. I immediately put it on my Z7 and it worked perfectly. I stuck another Sony 970 battery on the FX1000 and it worked perfectly. I swapped the batteries again and got the hot battery warning right away. In that instance, it was an easy solution. Just don't use that 1 battery on that camcorder. Months later, the guy that owned the FX1000 used my batteries for a prolonged shoot and he reported no problems what so ever. And that particular battery came back dead, so I am pretty sure he used it. Weird.

Try cleaning the third contact, which is the info lithium sensor contact.

Thanks Greg and Jun . . .
 

Thanks guys for your feedback! Your suggestion Jun to clean the battery contacts (and contacts on the camera too, I guess) is a great idea. If information wasn't being passed due to a dirty contact, it would make sense the camera would report a false warning - and shut down.

I guess tomorrow is gonna be "battery cleaning day" around here. It's cheap insurance, for sure, to do a little "dusting and cleaning". Thanks for passing on a piece of advice that can keep the cameras rolling!

Ian