Sigma Lenses "Battery Drain" Conundrum

[Jim-St]

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I recently added a couple of Sigma lenses to my CL kit: first the 90mm f2.8DG DN, which I haven't used much and hadn't really noticed this problem with, and recently the 10-18mm f2.8 DC DN, where the problem is much more acute and obvious.

I've seen a few threads here that discuss "battery drain" associated with Sigma lenses on the CL and TL's, but that problem is said to have been sorted by Sigma back in 2019. My problem is different from the prior issue and both my lenses were built some time after 2019: so this is a different problem from the "battery drain" issue of yesteryear, and may be unique to my CL, which I have owned and been regularly using since October 2018: my battery "drain" appears to be a virtual problem: when I take the Sigma lens off the camera and replace with a Leica lens, the Battery level displayed RISES. Let me explain in more detail

When I load a fully charged brand new battery into the CL, it works just fine for a while with battery display showing same level with Leica TL lenses and my Sigma 90 or 10-18.

When the battery is partially discharged, even if the display still shows 3-bars with a Leica lens mounted, at a certain point it will show 2-bars at switch-on with a Sigma lens mounted (or when changing from a Leica lens to a Sigma with or without switching off the camera), and the reading will fall to 1-bar after shooting 2 or 3 shots. If the camera is then switched off for a little while and restarted with Sigma lens mounted, the battery will show 2-bars on startup but this will fall back to 1-bar after 2 or 3 shots. Activating the zoom of the 10-18 will also cause the battery reading to drop.

Changing from one Sigma lens to the other at this point shows that both have the same effect on the battery level displayed.

Changing to a Leica TL lens such as the 11-23 or the 18-56, or to an L- mount Laowa lens with no electronic contacts, or to a Leica M-mount lens via the Leica M-Adapter-L, returns the battery level display to 3-bars.

I've been in touch with Sigma via staff at Ffordes who have communicated my problem to Sigma UK who have been in touch with Sigma in Tokyo, but so far no suggestion of a fix. 

My firmware is up to date, 4.1 on the CL and latest available on the lenses confirmed by the Sigma usb Dock/ Optimisation Pro app. I tried to reinstall the firmware to see if my I could overcome some corruption in that department, but that does not seem to be possible. I bought a new OEM battery and tried a few different SD cards but the problem persists, and remains a problem ONLY with the Sigma lenses. 

Posting here to see if anyone else has experienced this issue, and/ or has any suggestions. Short of buying a new 2nd hand CL and using it as a tester, I can't think of anything else I can do. Any suggestions welcome

Jim

[wda]

A new battery seldom reaches its maximum capacity immediately. It is possible that lens brands improve at different rates.  Just speculation.

[Jim-St]

Thanks David, but to be clear, this didn’t start with a new battery. I got a new battery just in case it was all my several aging BP-DC 12’s were dying and causing the problem. Seems not, though… battery is not the issue here 

Jim

[mokona]

I have the same issue with all my AF full frame L-mount lenses. Now I mainly use manual focus lenses on the CL.

[Jim-St]

Hi mokona 

That’s interesting: do you have both Leica and Sigma full-frame lenses? Do they behave differently in this regard? I started out thinking that the lenses were causing the problem, but I’m now leaning more towards the camera being at fault, and wondering if Leica will be interested in trying to repair it so it works with other L-mount Partners’ lenses. Do you have Panasonics too?

Jim

[mokona]

All my AF lenses (Leica, LUMIX and sigma) drain 1 bar of battery when mounted on the CL.

I’m not sure if it’s the AF.  But I would lean more on Aperture control compatibility issues: when I change the aperture with either the aperture ring on the lens or the wheel on camera, I don’t see the aperture blades moving, or if they do, it’s in a weird way (for the sigma 65mm, when going from f2 to F22, the aperture blades move only 3 times).

doing the same aperture changes test on other L mount cameras, the aperture blades move each time I change the aperture on the aperture ring or wheel.

[Jim-St]

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Thanks again mokona. I don't see any link to aperture in my setup, maybe because of my CL lenses lenses only the Sigma 90mm and to a lesser extent the 23mm Summicron have front elements wide enough to give any real view of what's going on inside. It occurs to me that the time-lapse at camera switch-on between the initial 3-bar display on the top panel, and that blanking-out and being replaced by the 2-bar, is very much the same as the time-lapse between switch-on and aperture blades popping open on the Sigma 90mm, so maybe there's a link there but there's really no way to be sure without a suitable lab test-bench to measure things on.

I think I may have to get hold of another CL and see if my Sigmas work ok on it...

[RM8]

On 2/14/2025 at 6:05 PM, Jim-St said:

I recently added a couple of Sigma lenses to my CL kit: first the 90mm f2.8DG DN, which I haven't used much and hadn't really noticed this problem with, and recently the 10-18mm f2.8 DC DN, where the problem is much more acute and obvious.

I've seen a few threads here that discuss "battery drain" associated with Sigma lenses on the CL and TL's, but that problem is said to have been sorted by Sigma back in 2019. My problem is different from the prior issue and both my lenses were built some time after 2019: so this is a different problem from the "battery drain" issue of yesteryear, and may be unique to my CL, which I have owned and been regularly using since October 2018: my battery "drain" appears to be a virtual problem: when I take the Sigma lens off the camera and replace with a Leica lens, the Battery level displayed RISES. Let me explain in more detail

 

 

When I load a fully charged brand new battery into the CL, it works just fine for a while with battery display showing same level with Leica TL lenses and my Sigma 90 or 10-18.

When the battery is partially discharged, even if the display still shows 3-bars with a Leica lens mounted, at a certain point it will show 2-bars at switch-on with a Sigma lens mounted (or when changing from a Leica lens to a Sigma with or without switching off the camera), and the reading will fall to 1-bar after shooting 2 or 3 shots. If the camera is then switched off for a little while and restarted with Sigma lens mounted, the battery will show 2-bars on startup but this will fall back to 1-bar after 2 or 3 shots. Activating the zoom of the 10-18 will also cause the battery reading to drop.

Changing from one Sigma lens to the other at this point shows that both have the same effect on the battery level displayed.

Changing to a Leica TL lens such as the 11-23 or the 18-56, or to an L- mount Laowa lens with no electronic contacts, or to a Leica M-mount lens via the Leica M-Adapter-L, returns the battery level display to 3-bars.

I've been in touch with Sigma via staff at Ffordes who have communicated my problem to Sigma UK who have been in touch with Sigma in Tokyo, but so far no suggestion of a fix. 

My firmware is up to date, 4.1 on the CL and latest available on the lenses confirmed by the Sigma usb Dock/ Optimisation Pro app. I tried to reinstall the firmware to see if my I could overcome some corruption in that department, but that does not seem to be possible. I bought a new OEM battery and tried a few different SD cards but the problem persists, and remains a problem ONLY with the Sigma lenses. 

Posting here to see if anyone else has experienced this issue, and/ or has any suggestions. Short of buying a new 2nd hand CL and using it as a tester, I can't think of anything else I can do. Any suggestions welcome

Jim

I have almost the very same experience, alternating on my CL between Sigma 10-18mm and Leica 23mm. Got used to mostly do +1 on battery reading for the Sigma and anyway spare one ready

[Jim-St]

19 hours ago, RM8 said:

I have almost the very same experience, alternating on my CL between Sigma 10-18mm and Leica 23mm. Got used to mostly do +1 on battery reading for the Sigma and anyway spare one ready

Bizarre. That stuff like this can persist some years into the L-Mount Alliance era, and even arise in new lenses that came to market after Sigma joined it.

I’ll ask my contact at Ffordes if he can pass this on to Sigma UK, hopefully they will pass it on to Japan. As they’re selling APSC lenses in L-mount maybe they can get a firmware update for them sorted out. I doubt Leica will be willing to devote any effort to any new firmware for its APSC cameras, but maybe a lens firmware update could solve it. 

I guess I’ll have to see if I can get used to the “+1 on battery & carry 1 or 2 spares” method and see how it goes. Fuji beckons, though, as a mature APSC system with a good range of lenses, that actually works and has a future.

6 years with the CL is the longest I’ve had from any digital camera, but nothing lasts forever 

 

Jim

[Le Chef]

Check on the Sigma site what the latest firmware is for L mount lenses. I downloaded the firmware to my computer and transferred to the root directory in the memory card In the camera. Then the camera automatically updated the Firmware with that lens attached. You get a message on the rear screen to that effect.

[Jim-St]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I have the Sigma usb dock which gives verification that the firmware in both my Sigma lenses is up to date. 
 

So my only real hope is that maybe I can get them to take the issue seriously and update the firmware to fix this problem which a few of us here have 

 

Jim

[Jim-St]

Just for the record: I did some testing yesterday, as follows: 

Loaded fully charged newish (2 prior charge cycles) battery in the CL, mounted the Sigma 10-18mm f2.8 DC DN lens and set about taking some pictures, to see how the battery and lens would perform. When the camera shut down following display of screen message "Low Battery Status – Camera Turns Off", I removed the Sigma and replaced it with the Leica 18mm f2.8 Elmarit-TL, switched the camera back on and carried on shooting.

Results as follows:

Lens	File No.	Battery Reading/ Message	Shots taken
Sigma 10-18	225	3 bars	0
	370	2 bars	145
	499	1 bar	274
	552	Red battery outline	327
	739	"Low Battery Status – Camera Turns Off"	514
Leica 18mm	740	2 bars	0
	787	1 bar	47
	856	Red battery outline	116
	872	"Battery empty - Forced Power Off"	132
Both lenses		Total shots from battery	646

 

Points arising: 

(1) the total number of shots I got out of the battery far exceeded my expectation, but 646 shots in 197 minutes is a faster rate than I personally would generally shoot at, so less battery time given over to redundant operation of the EVF and/or rear screen display. 

(2) the camera displayed two different messages before closing down. Maybe these messages are generated by the lens firmware, not the camera firmware

(3) if (2) is the case, then it is likely too that the lens firmware determines the number of shots the battery can support, and the Sigma firmware forces the camera to shut down when the battery still has about 20% capacity available to Leica TL lenses, and probably to other lenses (e.g. adapted M lenses/ Laowa’s & TTArtisan, etc).

So with a fully charged nearly-new battery, and shooting RAW files almost constantly from 15:48 to 19:05 I got a total of 646 .DNG files out of the CL, but the Sigma lens somehow forced the camera to shut down after 514 shots, with the battery apparently exhausted. But changing the lens at that point to a Leica TL lens, I got another 132 shots. 

Jim

[Linus84]

I have the exact same behaviour with my Sigma 10-18 vs. the TL35 or some other TL lens. The Sigma seems to drain the battery much faster than the TL lenses. Also It tends to go from 3 bars to 0 bars very quickly. The TL lenses are a bit more "linear" in the indicated drain on the camera. I don't know what firmware the lens has, but it was bought in 2024, so should not be too old (direct from sigma stock via a dealer in Sweden). The CL has the latest firmware at least.   

[Guytou]

I have a Sigma 105mm - f2.8 macro Art in TL mount.
I also noticed a significant battery drain on the CL when using it compared to my other TL lenses.

Guytou

[jaapv]

The culprit is most likely OIS. 

[Jim-St]

No OIS in either the 10-18mm or the 90mm that I have been using. And the odd thing is that the battery “drain” seems to be a diagnosis by the Sigma lens firmware: take the Sigma off and replace it with a Leica lens and battery power is reported at a higher level. That and the fact the Sigma gives a different notification before shutting down the camera from the “normal “ Leica notification, suggests to me that Sigma’s firmware is setting the battery level displayed, and is forcing the camera to shut down. 
So this is not about the lens putting extra “drain” on the battery, it’s about the lens firmware making the camera think the battery is running down faster than it actually is. 

A postscript: when I first encountered the issue I think I was using an aged battery, which shut down quicker than I have been able to make my new-purchased replacement do. I recommend anyone who tries to experiment in the way I have to do so with a new or nearly new Leica or LUMIX branded battery.

Jim

Edited February 25 by Jim-St
Postscript added

[dhaimoff]

I'm having the same issue with the sigma 10-18/2.8.  On a fully charged (new) battery, the indicator drops to two bars within minutes (if I rotate the zoom).  If I replace the 10-18/2.8 with any of the other Sigma  lenses I have (18-50/2.8,  24-70/2.8ii, and even the 100-400/5-6.3 w/OS) the indicator jumps back to 3 bars and stays there as expected. I would think that the 100-400 w/ optical stabilization and heavy glass would have the biggest effect on battery life but it is actually the little 10-18/2.8 that brings the CL to it's knees fastest. To the best of my knowledge, the L-mount 10-18/2.8 has not had a firmware update. Hopefully this is something that sigma is working on. 

Damon

[dhaimoff]

I reached out to Sigma and they promptly responded with the following:

Good morning,

Thank you for contacting Sigma Corporation of America and for using a Sigma product.

I have informed our engineering team about this symptom, and they have confirmed that it is due to the specifications of the current consumption of the 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN lens` focusing motor.

We apologize for any inconvenience, but since this is a lens specification, we do not have any plans to release a FW update regarding this symptom.

[elambo]

On 5/3/2025 at 3:02 AM, dhaimoff said:

I reached out to Sigma and they promptly responded with the following:

 

Good morning,

Thank you for contacting Sigma Corporation of America and for using a Sigma product.

I have informed our engineering team about this symptom, and they have confirmed that it is due to the specifications of the current consumption of the 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN lens` focusing motor.

We apologize for any inconvenience, but since this is a lens specification, we do not have any plans to release a FW update regarding this symptom.

 

That's awfully resolute. Case closed.

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Hallo,

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[Guytou]

Hello,

I already mentioned earlier the significant and rapid battery drain when using the Sigma f.2.8/105 Macro Art. This is compared to my two other Leica TL lenses.

Today, I want to buy a wide-angle zoom, and I have the Leica 11-23 in competition with the Sigma 10-18.
After reading the above, I will definitely opt for the used Leica 11-23, even if it's more expensive.

Sigma's response above really leaves me perplexed !...

GuyM

Edited August 24 by Guytou