I am new to Nikon having shot with Canon equip until just recently.
How long does the battery in your D300 usually last?
Yesterday I spent the entire day covering youth baseball. 8:30 am -6:30 pm. By noon or sooner the battery was at 50% and I was not sure if I would be able to comlplete the assignment. By 6:30 pm it was completely dead.
Probably shot over 1300 jpg images the entire day.
Is this typical? It's a new battery, and was at full charge when I started the day.
What made things worse is that the spare battery I had picked up a day earlier does not work in my camera. It is a generic equivalent and supposed to be compatible with the D300 but it's not. Digipower is the mfg, I think. It charges up ok, but doesn't register as a charged battery when you put it in the camera.
Anyone else have problems using batteries other than those made by Nikon? I have used the Canon equivalent of these batteries in the past with no problems, so this was a bit of a nasty shock.
hjanssen wrote:
Non Nikon batteries are not working in a D300 even when they work perfect in a D200.
+1 I believe it even says non-mfg batteries will not work in the manual.
You were shooting for 10 hours and you're surprised your battery was dead after that? Sounds like it did a good job to me. I get around 1500 shots or so on a charge.
I get between 1400-1500 shots per charge with heavy AF and no internal flash use. For sports I use the MBD-10 and have never thought about what my battery charge is as I get 3500+
1300 shots shooting sports sounds pretty good. Sports involves big heavy lenses, lots of autofocussing of those big heavy lenses, usually on Continuous mode, all of which eats batteries. I cannot believe someone would plan a day shooting sports without more than one fully charged backup battery. When I do a 5 hour model shoot in a studio (this typically involves a single 24-70 or 28-75 lens) I have two bodies and 3 batteries just in case. I have seldom needed more than one of each.
I think the bigger problem here is why would you go ALL DAY shooting with only 1 battery. IMO thats horrible planning. I keep 2 batteries, and 16 2900mah rechargeable batteries with me (8 in the grip) and I rarely shoot over 400 shots in 1 day.
First, I would never deliberately plan to do an all day assignment of any kind without backups of some kind. But the back up battery I purchased did not work in the camera, and this wasn't discovered until it was too late. So that was bad on my end, to have not checked that out several days in advance. Guilty as charged.
Nikon v. after market batteries: Have used the same mfg batteries in my Canon equip and never had a problem. Did not expect to have one with the Nikon equivalent, so that was a cruel surprise for me.
I think those of you who mentioned using the grip and extra batteries are right on the money and it is something I will need to consider.
I wasn't complaining about the length of time or # of shots, just curious as to if that was similar to what others are getting from theirs. Apologies if it sounded like I was beefing about that. I did discover that when the battery indicator is down to one box I can get about another 45 minutes before it goes dead. No chimping, just shooting.
I did have backup equipment available (my old Canon equip) so there was a Plan B in effect if it really came down to it, just didn't want to go there if I didn't have to. I really enjoy using the D300, especially for sports.
Do the after market batteries work in the other Nikons (D50, D70, D200, etc) ?
DL, I would take the generic battery back to where you purchased it, and tell them it is not compatible with the D300, use the refund to get the real Nikon branded battery instead. Unfortunately, you didn't test out the battery ahead of time.
There are mentions on Pg xxiii, Pg 33, and Pg 388 about third party batteries. My guess is that in light of the laptop battery fires that have happened in the past, Nikon wanted tighter QA on the batteries to lessen the potential of a flaming camera...
Definitely taking the battery back to the store...and yes, definitely getting the original Nikon approved battery.
Not sure if it's tighter QA by Nikon or what, but lesson learned. Need to contact the after market companies and let them know their batteries are not as compatible as they state on their packaging. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has had this happen.
Interestingly, the two generic EN-EL3e's left over from my D200 work just fine on my D300 and read out all info on the Battery Info in the menu. Didn't know they weren't supposed to work until I read it here and checked the manual. They were purchased from Sterlingtek. Possibly varying quality generics are to blame?
I've since bought an extra Nikon EN-EL3e and use the Sterlingteks for backups.
Don
Edited by eos-m42guy on May 11, 2008 at 08:12 PM GMT
It's interesting that you note that the generic batteries work ok in the D200 and even in the D300 (they don't apparently know they're not supposed too, )
I was wondering if Nikon was changing things just enough in the D300/D3 type bodies to make the generics incompatible. Has anyone here ever used generics in their other Nikon bodies? Curious as to what your experience was, good or bad.
Have no problem using Nikon accessories, wish they could price them a little better, though. I know, I know, why buy a camera if you can't afford the batteries?
I've never tried Sterlingtek's, but interesting that they at least worked with your equipment. There probably is some variance between mfg's I imagine.
3 are genuine Nikon ( came with the cameras ) and the other 4 were £10 ( $20 ) from ebay UK they all work fine in my D80 D200 and D300. They all show the charge and number of shots taken. The oldest one must be 2 years old by now.
I have never noticed any differance in performance between these cheap ones and the Nikon ones. I dont even bother to check which is which anymore.
I have 4 genuine and 3 generic batteries and they all work fine in my D300 and all worked fine in the D200 I had previous.
I use the genuine ones first and, due to the increased number of shots I get from the D300 I never have to use the generic ones even though they do work fine.
I once bought an after-market battery for my D70 and returned it because it would last about 25% of the time the Nikon battery lasted.
When I bought my D200, I bought an extra battery the same day. Since then I've picked up a third battery "just in case". It's rare that I have to switch batteries on the same shoot, but I don't always have a chance to recharge after a shoot. (But I don't shoot thousands of frames a day.)
Nikon probably corrupts the use of 3rd-party batteries on purpose, but there is also interaction between the camera and the battery if only to measure how much power you have left. I think there's also some power management functionality. I know the Nikon batteries can be pricey, but my recommendation is to stick with the real thing.
