Sony alpha (a7) no auto poweroff?

[ChrisJ]

I keep forgetting to switch off my a7 mk1.
Every other camera that I've used has shut itself down after a while, this one just keeps destroying battery charge. I lost about 40% when I forgot it for an hour or so yesterday. Often I only realise when I pick it up a day or so later and find the battery is totally flat.

There's a setting in tools called power save start time which I have set to 5 mins, and I have just sat the camera down beside me and watched and nothing visible happens after 5mins. The lens cap is on so the screen is black with a border of the usual info including flashing bits complaining about the general darkness, and a decreasing battery charge.

It's this right? have I misunderstood the power save action? Is there another setting that I've missed? Is there something else configured that is making the camera think that it's active.? I don't think it makes a difference if I'm in airplane mode or not but am just testing that now.

Help really appreciated here, battery life is not this cameras best feature without me making things worse.

Chris

 

[ChrisJ]

Grrr. Answering my own question after some more googling.
If you have it set to auto switch between viewfinder and screen, the sensor there may keep getting triggered and keep the camera awake. I'm just testing that now. Nope, i switched it to viewfinder only and it's not shutdown, ill try the monitor only setting,,nope.
Ok next idea was remote control, turn that off. YES! It shut down!
Now with the viewfinder/ monitor set back to where i like it ie auto, YES it shut down. Once it's down, blocking the ir sensor in the viewfinder doesn't wake it up. Half press on the shutter does!

Phew, that was about 10% of the battery lost testing this.

Maybe you all knew this already, but just in case I hope it proves useful.

Chris