Quick battery question. Does anyone have a sort of rough guideline to battery life? I shoot a D700 with a D300 backup, so that means EN-EL3e batteries. I'm not a full time pro; I probably shoot less than 20k frames a year. Climates are mostly temperate, nothing too extreme.
I have no idea whether these batteries (or aftermarket replacements) will be available in a decade, and was thinking about stockpiling a few more, distribute the amp-hours a bit.
The D700 would last weeks sometime for me, when I wasn't doing a lot of shooting. They EN-EL3e has a good battery life. I had one spare to share between my D300s and D700 when I had that combo.. and I would always get away with a long weekend of shooting with what I had ... no charging required.
I shot with a pair of D700s for three years as a wedding photographer. Each D700 had a grip and two EN-EL3Es. I had a spare EN-EL3E kicking around too. After three years, all batteries still show as "new" in the battery meter. I usually get between 1000 to 1200 shots per charge over the course of a single day of shooting. The lower end of the range is with VR lenses, while the upper end is with non-VR lenses.
My oldest en-el3e batteries were purchased when the D200 was current. They show "2" on the battery life screen, but function no differently from others less than a year old. The shelf life of Li-Ion batteries are very good, but I wouldn't worry about them becoming difficult to buy for many years to come.
Had my D300 for 4 yrs now, D700 almost 4 yrs now. Both original batteries still show new on the camera battery info. Both cameras over 50K shots for some idea of my usage. I think the best thing is to let any battery nearly fully discharge prior to recharging though. Hope this helps...
I've read (thom hogan), that it's best to use a battery till it's about a third battery charge left, then recharge. Lithium batteries have different charging needs to NiMH batteries which are best off being emptied then recharged.
