Camera Batteries - that's life

Mozziephotography

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Out in the wind and rain on Sunday at a road race. Shot 1378 images and the battery still showed 80%. Hardly touched the sides. Well impressed with these batteries. EN EL15
 
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I have noticed that my Nikon cameras are much more efficient than my canon cameras....

I set my cameras to never review the image etc. and you can get many thousands of shots from a charge. I was most impressed by the D5, I had an EN EL18 (not the higher capacity A) and while shooting in sub zero temperatures for skiing, it shot 3.5k images and was showing 75% remaining. I was reviewing a few throughout the session, but I was seriously impressed
 
I regularly get 2500+ from the EN EL15's in my D750 even though I almost never shut the camera off once I get to a venue but last Thursday I was shooting a car for a mate (Mondeo ST220 in metallic black) and using live view throughout - 3 batteries dead in under 500 images!! :(
 
I dutifully carry a second battery, but I've never drained a fully charged Nikon in a day. I've gone through 3 on my Fuji X100T.
 
I dutifully carry a second battery, but I've never drained a fully charged Nikon in a day. I've gone through 3 on my Fuji X100T.


I carry a spare Nikon battery too and ditto. Never used up my Fuji X100V battery either though, which is just as well since the camera doesn't come with a charger so really no point buying a second battery as I have to use the camera as a charger. Yes, I could charge them in turn but once they've both gone then...well, you get it. No, I'm not buying a charger, I already had to buy a weatherproofing kit for the camera; enough is enough. Nice camera though, if a bit unreliable (had to get a warranty replacement and the replacement has a minor fault on it too).
 
I carry a spare Nikon battery too and ditto. Never used up my Fuji X100V battery either though, which is just as well since the camera doesn't come with a charger so really no point buying a second battery as I have to use the camera as a charger. Yes, I could charge them in turn but once they've both gone then...well, you get it. No, I'm not buying a charger, I already had to buy a weatherproofing kit for the camera; enough is enough. Nice camera though, if a bit unreliable (had to get a warranty replacement and the replacement has a minor fault on it too).
No charger? I had no idea they'd stopped including one! It was standard with the T, but I think that was the first model you could charge the battery in-camera (and more slowly than with the charger - it's just micro USB, not USB-C).
 
I do wonder if a charger would work faster as charging in camera seems to take quite a while but perhaps it's just the last few percent as I've found some other rechargeable things reach 98% then appear to slow down.
 
Out in the wind and rain on Sunday at a road race. Shot 1378 images and the battery still showed 80%. Hardly touched the sides. Well impressed with these batteries. EN EL15

Which model?

I find the D850 is kinder on batteries than the D810 - but neither get close to the life of the battery on the 645z.
 
The CIPA ratings for batteries are largely irrelevant in real life, even more so now with mirrorless cameras, the test they do seems designed to offer up a worst-case scenario and they aren't even particularly useful as a comparison from camera to camera.

I remember when I owned a Fuji X-T2, with a CIPA rating of just 350 shots, I shot over 1600 during a 24hr race with about 10% still remaining. I'm now a Sony a9/a7III owner and the reality is similar in terms of x amount of times over and above the official rating.
 
How many shots vs how many keepers.

I use various camera but I have SIgma DPMs which have limited battery life. Number of shots per day is low because I just use them differently. Much high number of keepers than with my other camera types.

And when the Fuji X-T4 came out reviewers seemed to be very happy with the increased battery size - whereas YAB (yet another battery) puts me off. I think the manufacturers are oblivious to this (and given the price of OEM batteries one might suspect that they are incentivised to get us to buy new backups) and I think it would be good practice to offer an adapter in this sort of situation to allow us old carmudgeons to more easily run and older body with a newer body.

I would also add that I never cared much for in-camera charging until recently. However with USB and particularly USB-C charging it becomes convenient if you're travelling and carrying a USB power supply for other kit.
 
I would also add that I never cared much for in-camera charging until recently. However with USB and particularly USB-C charging it becomes convenient if you're travelling and carrying a USB power supply for other kit.

I agree. It is convenient especially as my phone uses the same USB C as my X100V. Of course this is all well and good until the next big thing in USB connectors comes out, although various sources I've looked at see USB C as a connector might be around for some time but perhaps the protocols it uses for data transfer might change. Nevertheless, for charging, the USB C connector seems to be pretty stable for some time to come so I'd expect to see many more camera models adopting and 'in-camera' charging system to save on chargers. TBH, I wouldn't be too disappointed if that happened as I can't imagine the number of different chargers I have had hanging around the house at any one time. The most annoying of which is the one for my Surface Pro 6 tablet which because of it's odd connector, without the dedicated charger, would be an excellent paperweight.
 
I dutifully carry a second battery, but I've never drained a fully charged Nikon in a day. I've gone through 3 on my Fuji X100T.
You should try shooting a Tough Mudder event - between 9,000 and 12,000 images over 2 days :)
 
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