Nikon D750 & D780

Sorry if this has already been mentioned on here somewhere, but I was wondering if anyone has used their D750 for filming? I have been asked to film a short music video for a local band and although i'd like to take on the challenge, i'd like to know the limitations such as AF etc and any other things that may be worth thinking about. Currently, I have a 16-35 F4, a 50mm 18D, Nikon 70-200mm 2.8, Sigma 105mm macro etc. I only have three batteries and I know how video can consume power, so i may have to look at this too. Thanks for any help.

Moey!
 
Moey said:
Sorry if this has already been mentioned on here somewhere, but I was wondering if anyone has used their D750 for filming? I have been asked to film a short music video for a local band and although i'd like to take on the challenge, i'd like to know the limitations such as AF etc and any other things that may be worth thinking about. Currently, I have a 16-35 F4, a 50mm 18D, Nikon 70-200mm 2.8, Sigma 105mm macro etc. I only have three batteries and I know how video can consume power, so i may have to look at this too. Thanks for any help.

Moey!
Click to expand...

Af is a definite no no. Best bet is manual focus, live view, choose a suitable aperture/correct shutter say 1/50 and auto iso. Stabilise as best you can, monopod, tripod or vr/vc/os. It's not a video camera but the sensor delivers good 1080 results.
 
I tested the D5 at Calumet today with the 300 F4 lens and the camera is awesome. It is big and bulky, but with the lightweight 300, it felt nice.

I tried the same lens on the D5 and my D750 on different objects and I can say the D5 autofocus is brilliant. The D750 is also excellent, but the D5 grabs the focus as if it knows before you even press the button. AF speed is phenomenal.
 
i'm after an L-Plate for my 750, i picked a cheap one up off fleabay but it has small chromed rivets along both sides of the base which arent flush with the plate body, this means it keeps catching on the tripod quick release head meaning i cant quick release it! Now the Kirk plate is about £120 so i'd rather not pay that if i could so has anyone got a cheap copy from somewhere that doesnt have those chrome studs in it? Everyone on ebay seems that have them.
 
AshleyC said:
i'm after an L-Plate for my 750, i picked a cheap one up off fleabay but it has small chromed rivets along both sides of the base which arent flush with the plate body, this means it keeps catching on the tripod quick release head meaning i cant quick release it! Now the Kirk plate is about £120 so i'd rather not pay that if i could so has anyone got a cheap copy from somewhere that doesnt have those chrome studs in it? Everyone on ebay seems that have them.
Click to expand...

Are they not a safety thing to stop it sliding out of the clamp?
 
probably, but you cant actually take it out of the quick release head without unscrewing the head further, totally defeating the point of it being quick release :) The Kirk plate doesnt have anything like them on it. I just wondered if some copiers had done a similar thing.
 
AshleyC said:
probably, but you cant actually take it out of the quick release head without unscrewing the head further, totally defeating the point of it being quick release :) The Kirk plate doesnt have anything like them on it. I just wondered if some copiers had done a similar thing.
Click to expand...

ah, ok. I havn't a quick release head, just a screw one so have never came across this. I bought one of these, the crome studs can be removed and it fits nicely allowing access to the side panels and battery compartment.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vertical-...590736?hash=item1a0bf27cd0:g:cPcAAOSwpRRWpxcv
 
pjm1 said:
My issue with the L plates is they don't tend to work with grips attached. Most annoying because the one I bought was part of a grip + bracket bundle!
Click to expand...

Do you not get the 2 different sizes, one for grip and one for without?
 
anibap said:
I tested the D5 at Calumet today with the 300 F4 lens and the camera is awesome. It is big and bulky, but with the lightweight 300, it felt nice.

I tried the same lens on the D5 and my D750 on different objects and I can say the D5 autofocus is brilliant. The D750 is also excellent, but the D5 grabs the focus as if it knows before you even press the button. AF speed is phenomenal.
Click to expand...
Must be good if you can notice a difference, I thought the D750 was pretty much instant :eek:
 
snerkler said:
I've just used a battery with my vertex grip for the first time and in the battery options on the D750 the EN-EL15 option does not show and only gives the three different AA options despite having the EL15 in the grip. Does this matter, and if not which of the three AA options should I choose?
Click to expand...
Quick update. In the D750 manual it states and shows an option to choose the EL15 when using a grip, plus 3 options for AA batteries so four options in total. But as stated above mine only shows the option for the three AA's. However, had another look tonight and if I press the ? button (to show info about that item) when in that section in the menu it states that you don't need to select the battery type when using a rechargeable lithium ion (or whatever type of battery the EL15 is).

So I'm wondering if the manual's wrong or whether this menu has been altered in the firmware update :confused: Either way it appears to work OK and displays (hopefully) the correct battery charge info.
 
LR6 (AA alkaline) ..... Use for AA Alkaline batteries [default]
HR6 (AA Ni-MH) ....... Use for rechargeable AA Nickel-Metal Hydride

batteries
FR6 (AA lithium) ...... Use for AA lithium batteries, such as the Eveready

Lithium series

3

Recommendations:

  1. You must set this function if you use AA batteries in the

    MB-D16; otherwise you won’t get accurate and reliable power indication. In some cases, the camera could report the battery exhausted when it is isn’t.

  2. You don’t have to set this function if you use EN-EL15 batteries in the MB-D16; the D750 detects that automatically.

  3. So what type of battery should you use in the MB-D16? EN-EL15 batteries or NiMH rechargeable AA batteries of at least 2100mAh are the two environmentally and photographer friendly choices. Lithium AA batteries are expensive, and disposing of lithium isn’t exactly something you want to do regularly—it’s not a great environmental friend, though it’s better than some of the other materials batteries have been made of. Alkaline AA batteries are cheap and ubiquitous, but they won’t last as long as NiMH or Lithium batteries, and also pose a recycling issue.

  4. Note that only the full, low, and empty battery displays are shown when AA batteries are used by the camera, and the detailed Battery info option on the SETUP menu doesn’t apply to them.
 
the optional MB-D16 grip and have a battery in it, you need to tell the camera which battery to use first, the one in the camera or the one in the grip.

Use MB-D16 batteries first ... Camera first uses the battery in the MB- D16, then uses the battery in the camera

body [default]
Use camera battery first ...... Camera uses the batter in the body first,

then the one in the MB-D16 grip

3

Recommendations:

  1. The default seems like the right approach for most people, as

    getting to the battery in the body with the grip on means removing the grip, which is a hassle.

  2. I would suggest that if you use the EN-EL15 battery in the grip, that you have at least three batteries while shooting: one in the camera, one in the grip, and one to replace the one in the grip when it is exhausted. In other words, use the battery in the camera as “the last resort” battery, charging it only when you’re back home and aren’t in a hurry to remove the grip.
 
Direction pad 3 or the OK button to confirm your choice.

page108image1952

If you fail to perform these steps, the battery indicators on the camera will display incorrect information and may cause you to think batteries have power remaining or are discharged when they’re not. This is especially critical because the top LCD and Shooting Information display battery indicators only use three states when AA batteries are in the camera, while they use five states for EN-EL15 batteries (see next section).

Battery Life

You’ll probably be surprised to learn that the D750 models use very little energy when it sleeps between shots; barely more than it does when turned Off. Thus, it makes little sense to turn the camera Off between shots.

The battery status is shown in the top LCD and on the color LCD when the Shooting Information display is active. The top LCD and Shooting Information display use five segment indicators for EN-EL5 batteries:

battery has a full charge
battery is nearly full
battery about half depleted
batteries are low in charge
battery is low in charge; replace soon (blinking) battery is exhausted

The viewfinder only shows battery status when the battery is low:

; battery is nearly exhausted (blinks when exhausted) When you’re using batteries in both the camera and the MB-D16

grip, the camera provides the charge information for the current

page108image14472
page108image14904
page108image15336
page108image15768
page108image16200
page108image16632

Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D750 Page 108
 
battery (in the top LCD and viewfinder; the Shooting Information display will show both the actual battery being used and its charge):

In the Shooting Information display (press O button) you’ll see two possible battery indicators at the top right, one for the in-camera battery at the far right and one for what’s in the MB-D16 just to the left of it. The battery currently being used will be highlighted, the other dimmed. Here we’ve got a fully charged EN-EL15 battery in the MB-D16 and a fully charged one in the camera.

The battery in the MB-D16 is used first, then the one in the camera. Thus, it is possible to have a full battery in the camera but see a low battery signal in all the displays—the camera is saying that the currently used battery, in the MB-D16, is low. The indicator will suddenly show full when the camera switches batteries.

If you’re at all concerned about which battery is being used and what the exact charge is, you can use the camera’s Battery info option:

  1. Press the MENU button and use the Direction pad to navigate to the SETUP menu (wrench icon).

  2. Use the Direction pad to navigate to Battery Info and press the right edge of the Direction pad 3 or the OK button to see the information display.
Version 1.00

page109image13792
page109image13960
 
As many as three pieces of information are revealed about each battery:

Charge: the percentage of charge actually remaining in the battery.

No. of shots: the number of shots you’ve taken with that battery in the camera.

Battery age: an indicator of the batteries active life. The battery in the MB-D12 (right column) is a new battery and shows its age as 0. If there is no battery in the D750 you will see hyphens for that battery’s indicators.

If you don’t have an MB- D16 attached, you’ll only see information about the battery in the camera, as you would expect.

Nikon’s manual gives several battery life figures. Here are the CIPA19 standard testing figures:

  • EN-EL15: 1230 shots

  • AA alkaline batteries: 430 shots

    If you’ve got a battery in the camera and one in the MB-D16, you can add those figures together (e.g. two EN-EL15’s should give you about 2460 shots).

    19 Camera and Image Products Association, a voluntary organization that tracks industry shipments and establishes guidelines for various marketing claims, including battery life. CIPAs tests require the camera set to defaults, the lens cycled from infinity to minimum focus distance, and a shot taken every 30 seconds. Every other shot needs to be taken with flash. Nikon has their own test procedures that come up with different values (decidedly higher values than the CIPA numbers they report). In general use, I’ll bet that you’ll come closer to the CIPA numbers than Nikon’s, thus my emphasis on them here. Like car mileage ratings, your actual results may di
 
• A full image review on the color LCD reduces the number of shots per charge, though not as much as on some previous Nikons. If you have Image review set to On and the Monitor off delay (Custom Setting #C4) for image review set to the 10s value and don’t manually turn off the image on the color LCD after the shot, you’ll reduce your shots per charge by perhaps as much as a third. This, however, is a predictable and manageable behavior. Cut your image review down from 10 seconds to 4 and you reduce the battery impact by at least half (i.e. you’d get a significant increase in shots per charge).

Note:

Most D750 shooters use the color LCD to at least review the histogram, but there’s still a trick you can use to preserve a bit of power. After you’ve reviewed the shot for exposure, press the shutter release partway to activate the metering and autofocus systems. The camera thinks you’re getting ready to take another picture and turns the color LCD immediately off (normally, the image would stay on the color LCD until the LCD time-out is reached or until you pressed the 2 button to turn it off).

• Use of autofocus lenses doesn’t significantly contribute to power drain. That’s because it’s a short draw of power. The peak power draw may be high, but since it’s normally such a short time during which this load occurs (at least with AF-S lenses), it isn’t a big deal. The difference in power consumption using AF and AF-S lenses is negligible, but real (non AF-S lenses generally take longer to reach focus position, plus the power used by the in-camera motor is a bit higher than that of the in-lens motors). However, constant use of VR (vibration reduction) lenses reduce battery life by 10% or more when the vibration reduction feature is used (the vibration reduction in the lens is powered by the camera). Since many users tend to keep VR activated by holding the shutter release partway, VR use can shorten battery life by very observable amounts. VR should usually be Off unless dictated by the situation.
 
Note:

Setting #C2 (see “Meter/Camera Active Time” on page <609 >). Generally I don’t recommend that unless you’re in a dire battery situation and need to conserve as much as possible.

Eye-Fi cards keep the meter active! Thus, using an Eye-Fi card is a huge power consumer. Moreover, this can have impacts on other things, too. If you trigger your camera with a Pocket Wizard remotely, that won’t work with an Eye-Fi card in the camera because the Pocket Wizard needs the camera to go to a meter inactive state to take a picture.

• Power consumption is highest when the camera is
“active” (metering, focusing, taking a picture, transferring images to a card, etc.). Reducing the amount of time the camera is active (metering and focus active) is another key to reducing power consumption. Thus, you’ll get fewer pictures per charge if you leave the camera active for longer periods. You can cut the active timeout to 4 seconds via Custom

  • Long exposures. The camera is “active” throughout an exposure, not just when you partially press the shutter release to activate the metering and focus systems. Thus, when you take very long exposures, you’re doing the same thing as holding the shutter release partially down. However, again the D750 seems to be better in this respect than some older Nikon DSLRs. I’m not finding that a series of long exposures exhausts my battery on the D750 as fast as it did on, say, my D2h. Still, with the camera continuously on, the battery is likely to die in a matter of hours.

  • Power consumption is also high when the camera is connected to a HDMI monitor, computer, or to a PictBridge printer. This is one of the reasons I recommend using an external card reader for transferring files. While the camera is connected to the computer via the USB cable and the camera is on, the camera consumes significantly more power than normal. It’s not unusual to see the battery indicator go from full to half or half to empty when transferring from multiple, large cards or shooting tethered for a long period. The same is true for PictBridge sessions: the camera is drawing significant power the entire time it is connected to the printer, so remove the connection when you’re not using it. Printing just a few dozen images with a Sony PictureStation printer connected dropped my battery power by over half, for example. The HDMI connection also
 
draws constant power when used. I see a 10% power drop in 30 minutes with HDMI connected and in use. Fortunately, Nikon seems to not draw power when no signal is going out on the HDMI connection. In other words, you can leave the HDMI cable connected, and extra power is only consumed when the rear LCD is active.

  • A GPS connection to the camera reduces battery life. This is doubly true if you use one of the camera-powered GPS receivers, like the one made by Dawn Tech or Nikon’s own GP-1. Like the other USB connections, constant GPS use will make your battery life measured in hours, not shots. The good news is that the GP-1 responds to the Standby timer setting (Custom Setting #C2), so it’s drain can be minimized a bit by adjusting that setting. The bad news is that when the GP-1 powers down by instruction from the camera, it takes significant time for it to reacquire a signal. That’s one of the reasons why I personally prefer GPS units with their own power and fast reacquisition times.

  • The lithium-ion batteries of the D750 do not lose capacity over short periods of non-use. If you store the battery for a very long period of time, it will probably lose charge, though. It takes very long periods of time to see significant power reduction on a battery not being used (a month or

    more). See “Battery Storage” on page <100>.

  • On the other hand, the D750 is not completely quiescent when the Power switch is in the OFF position. In particular, the D750 uses an LCD overlay mechanism in the viewfinder, which requires a small, but constant power source. This overlay supplies the autofocus sensor markings, and the Image area crop if enabled). You can verify this by looking through the viewfinder while removing the battery: the display will get darker without the battery in the camera.

    The consequence of the LCD overlay needing power is that if you store a D750 with the battery in it for a month, at the end of that month you’ll have either a discharged or very low battery. Moreover, you’ll likely be running the battery fully down, which as I’ve already mentioned, is not the way to leave Lithium Ion batteries if they’re not going to be used for a period of time. Remove the battery from the camera if you’re not going to use it for long periods of time.
 
Overall, it’s generally not a good idea to continually run your battery completely down (below 5%), as you risk a “deep discharge” cycle if you do and don’t immediately get the battery onto the charger. You can take batteries down until exhaustion if you have to, but you shouldn’t do this regularly, and you should immediately put a battery discharged this way on the charger, if possible.

One other comment: if your VR seems to act sporadically and sometimes appear to jump to a correction point instead of move gracefully, I’ll bet your battery is low (and probably down near that 5% mark). VR has a high spike in its draw when it activates. When the battery is very low, the VR system doesn’t get the power it expects and stutters. However, if your VR system seems to stutter with a full battery, that’s usually a sign that something is wrong with the VR mechanism.

• Flash use definitely increases battery consumption. Every time you use the flash, the battery in the camera is used to recharge the capacitor that the flash just drained. It’s difficult to predict just how much increase there is in battery consumption with flash, because how much flash you’re producing makes a difference. If the flash is firing at full power, the capacitor needs to be completely recharged. If you are using just a touch of fill flash or a low manual flash power level, the camera cuts off the flash early and the capacitor only needs to be topped off, not filled. A rule of thumb is this: the further you are from your subject when you use flash, the more you’re discharging the battery and the fewer shots per charge you’ll get.

Overall, the battery performance on the D750 is very good. I can’t think of an occasion where I’ve really needed more than one battery a day during normal shooting (this changes if I’m using a lot of Live View, a GPS, or a lot of internal flash). If you start the day with two fully charged EN-EL15 batteries (one in the camera, one in the MB- D16), you’re not likely to run out of power.

That said, EN-EL15 batteries are small and light, so it really doesn’t hurt to carry an extra one or two with you.

Version 1.00
 
Final Battery Notes

The battery charger that comes with the D750 models can be used worldwide, at any voltage from 100 to 250 volts. You do need to obtain the correct cables and/or adapters for the power socket, however. Sets of socket adapters can be found at any Radio Shack and most travel stores.

Since the D750 models use an intelligent battery system, you’ll want to pay more attention to the information the camera tells you about the battery. Get accustomed to using the Battery info option just before you swap out batteries. It’ll tell you how many shots you’re actually getting per charge and help you judge how many batteries you need for a shoot. Likewise, you’ll start to notice that different types of shooting (e.g. indoors with flash versus outdoor landscapes) are giving you different values. That’s useful information to know.

Image Storage

While the D750 models have an internal memory buffer that temporarily stores data obtained from the sensor, it uses a Secure Digital memory card for final in-camera storage of digital images.

Let’s revisit a diagram I showed earlier and follow what happens:

page116image11368
 
@minnnt I know sometimes people will think it's not a nice thing to do, but I have read on here and other places, that sometimes have a few discussions on a companies Twitter or Facebook account can actually speed things up, when they seem to be dragging their feet. Maybe worth a try if they have social media accounts or possibly speaking to Nikon direct?
 
Last edited:
Moey said:
Sorry if this has already been mentioned on here somewhere, but I was wondering if anyone has used their D750 for filming? I have been asked to film a short music video for a local band and although i'd like to take on the challenge, i'd like to know the limitations such as AF etc and any other things that may be worth thinking about. Currently, I have a 16-35 F4, a 50mm 18D, Nikon 70-200mm 2.8, Sigma 105mm macro etc. I only have three batteries and I know how video can consume power, so i may have to look at this too. Thanks for any help.

Moey!
Click to expand...
Here's a couple of links to some video I did in my local venue just to try it out, I was quite please with the picture quality given the conditions. Sorry about the sound though.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo6_gBg0F_Y

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_imcTp_t1A
 
SsSsSsSsSnake said:
It detects it automatically Toby if EL15 is used
Click to expand...

SsSsSsSsSnake said:
LR6 (AA alkaline) ..... Use for AA Alkaline batteries [default]
HR6 (AA Ni-MH) ....... Use for rechargeable AA Nickel-Metal Hydride

batteries
FR6 (AA lithium) ...... Use for AA lithium batteries, such as the Eveready

Lithium series

3

Recommendations:

  1. You must set this function if you use AA batteries in the

    MB-D16; otherwise you won’t get accurate and reliable power indication. In some cases, the camera could report the battery exhausted when it is isn’t.

  2. You don’t have to set this function if you use EN-EL15 batteries in the MB-D16; the D750 detects that automatically.

  3. So what type of battery should you use in the MB-D16? EN-EL15 batteries or NiMH rechargeable AA batteries of at least 2100mAh are the two environmentally and photographer friendly choices. Lithium AA batteries are expensive, and disposing of lithium isn’t exactly something you want to do regularly—it’s not a great environmental friend, though it’s better than some of the other materials batteries have been made of. Alkaline AA batteries are cheap and ubiquitous, but they won’t last as long as NiMH or Lithium batteries, and also pose a recycling issue.

  4. Note that only the full, low, and empty battery displays are shown when AA batteries are used by the camera, and the detailed Battery info option on the SETUP menu doesn’t apply to them.
Click to expand...

SsSsSsSsSnake said:
the optional MB-D16 grip and have a battery in it, you need to tell the camera which battery to use first, the one in the camera or the one in the grip.

Use MB-D16 batteries first ... Camera first uses the battery in the MB- D16, then uses the battery in the camera

body [default]
Use camera battery first ...... Camera uses the batter in the body first,

then the one in the MB-D16 grip

3

Recommendations:

  1. The default seems like the right approach for most people, as

    getting to the battery in the body with the grip on means removing the grip, which is a hassle.

  2. I would suggest that if you use the EN-EL15 battery in the grip, that you have at least three batteries while shooting: one in the camera, one in the grip, and one to replace the one in the grip when it is exhausted. In other words, use the battery in the camera as “the last resort” battery, charging it only when you’re back home and aren’t in a hurry to remove the grip.
Click to expand...

SsSsSsSsSnake said:
Direction pad 3 or the OK button to confirm your choice.


If you fail to perform these steps, the battery indicators on the camera will display incorrect information and may cause you to think batteries have power remaining or are discharged when they’re not. This is especially critical because the top LCD and Shooting Information display battery indicators only use three states when AA batteries are in the camera, while they use five states for EN-EL15 batteries (see next section).

Battery Life

You’ll probably be surprised to learn that the D750 models use very little energy when it sleeps between shots; barely more than it does when turned Off. Thus, it makes little sense to turn the camera Off between shots.

The battery status is shown in the top LCD and on the color LCD when the Shooting Information display is active. The top LCD and Shooting Information display use five segment indicators for EN-EL5 batteries:

battery has a full charge
battery is nearly full
battery about half depleted
batteries are low in charge
battery is low in charge; replace soon (blinking) battery is exhausted

The viewfinder only shows battery status when the battery is low:

; battery is nearly exhausted (blinks when exhausted) When you’re using batteries in both the camera and the MB-D16

grip, the camera provides the charge information for the current


Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D750 Page 108
Click to expand...

SsSsSsSsSnake said:
battery (in the top LCD and viewfinder; the Shooting Information display will show both the actual battery being used and its charge):

In the Shooting Information display (press O button) you’ll see two possible battery indicators at the top right, one for the in-camera battery at the far right and one for what’s in the MB-D16 just to the left of it. The battery currently being used will be highlighted, the other dimmed. Here we’ve got a fully charged EN-EL15 battery in the MB-D16 and a fully charged one in the camera.

The battery in the MB-D16 is used first, then the one in the camera. Thus, it is possible to have a full battery in the camera but see a low battery signal in all the displays—the camera is saying that the currently used battery, in the MB-D16, is low. The indicator will suddenly show full when the camera switches batteries.

If you’re at all concerned about which battery is being used and what the exact charge is, you can use the camera’s Battery info option:

  1. Press the MENU button and use the Direction pad to navigate to the SETUP menu (wrench icon).

  2. Use the Direction pad to navigate to Battery Info and press the right edge of the Direction pad 3 or the OK button to see the information display.
Version 1.00
Click to expand...

SsSsSsSsSnake said:
As many as three pieces of information are revealed about each battery:

Charge: the percentage of charge actually remaining in the battery.

No. of shots: the number of shots you’ve taken with that battery in the camera.

Battery age: an indicator of the batteries active life. The battery in the MB-D12 (right column) is a new battery and shows its age as 0. If there is no battery in the D750 you will see hyphens for that battery’s indicators.

If you don’t have an MB- D16 attached, you’ll only see information about the battery in the camera, as you would expect.

Nikon’s manual gives several battery life figures. Here are the CIPA19 standard testing figures:

  • EN-EL15: 1230 shots

  • AA alkaline batteries: 430 shots

    If you’ve got a battery in the camera and one in the MB-D16, you can add those figures together (e.g. two EN-EL15’s should give you about 2460 shots).

    19 Camera and Image Products Association, a voluntary organization that tracks industry shipments and establishes guidelines for various marketing claims, including battery life. CIPAs tests require the camera set to defaults, the lens cycled from infinity to minimum focus distance, and a shot taken every 30 seconds. Every other shot needs to be taken with flash. Nikon has their own test procedures that come up with different values (decidedly higher values than the CIPA numbers they report). In general use, I’ll bet that you’ll come closer to the CIPA numbers than Nikon’s, thus my emphasis on them here. Like car mileage ratings, your actual results may di
Click to expand...

SsSsSsSsSnake said:
• A full image review on the color LCD reduces the number of shots per charge, though not as much as on some previous Nikons. If you have Image review set to On and the Monitor off delay (Custom Setting #C4) for image review set to the 10s value and don’t manually turn off the image on the color LCD after the shot, you’ll reduce your shots per charge by perhaps as much as a third. This, however, is a predictable and manageable behavior. Cut your image review down from 10 seconds to 4 and you reduce the battery impact by at least half (i.e. you’d get a significant increase in shots per charge).

Note:

Most D750 shooters use the color LCD to at least review the histogram, but there’s still a trick you can use to preserve a bit of power. After you’ve reviewed the shot for exposure, press the shutter release partway to activate the metering and autofocus systems. The camera thinks you’re getting ready to take another picture and turns the color LCD immediately off (normally, the image would stay on the color LCD until the LCD time-out is reached or until you pressed the 2 button to turn it off).

• Use of autofocus lenses doesn’t significantly contribute to power drain. That’s because it’s a short draw of power. The peak power draw may be high, but since it’s normally such a short time during which this load occurs (at least with AF-S lenses), it isn’t a big deal. The difference in power consumption using AF and AF-S lenses is negligible, but real (non AF-S lenses generally take longer to reach focus position, plus the power used by the in-camera motor is a bit higher than that of the in-lens motors). However, constant use of VR (vibration reduction) lenses reduce battery life by 10% or more when the vibration reduction feature is used (the vibration reduction in the lens is powered by the camera). Since many users tend to keep VR activated by holding the shutter release partway, VR use can shorten battery life by very observable amounts. VR should usually be Off unless dictated by the situation.
Click to expand...

SsSsSsSsSnake said:
Note:

Setting #C2 (see “Meter/Camera Active Time” on page <609 >). Generally I don’t recommend that unless you’re in a dire battery situation and need to conserve as much as possible.

Eye-Fi cards keep the meter active! Thus, using an Eye-Fi card is a huge power consumer. Moreover, this can have impacts on other things, too. If you trigger your camera with a Pocket Wizard remotely, that won’t work with an Eye-Fi card in the camera because the Pocket Wizard needs the camera to go to a meter inactive state to take a picture.

• Power consumption is highest when the camera is
“active” (metering, focusing, taking a picture, transferring images to a card, etc.). Reducing the amount of time the camera is active (metering and focus active) is another key to reducing power consumption. Thus, you’ll get fewer pictures per charge if you leave the camera active for longer periods. You can cut the active timeout to 4 seconds via Custom

  • Long exposures. The camera is “active” throughout an exposure, not just when you partially press the shutter release to activate the metering and focus systems. Thus, when you take very long exposures, you’re doing the same thing as holding the shutter release partially down. However, again the D750 seems to be better in this respect than some older Nikon DSLRs. I’m not finding that a series of long exposures exhausts my battery on the D750 as fast as it did on, say, my D2h. Still, with the camera continuously on, the battery is likely to die in a matter of hours.

  • Power consumption is also high when the camera is connected to a HDMI monitor, computer, or to a PictBridge printer. This is one of the reasons I recommend using an external card reader for transferring files. While the camera is connected to the computer via the USB cable and the camera is on, the camera consumes significantly more power than normal. It’s not unusual to see the battery indicator go from full to half or half to empty when transferring from multiple, large cards or shooting tethered for a long period. The same is true for PictBridge sessions: the camera is drawing significant power the entire time it is connected to the printer, so remove the connection when you’re not using it. Printing just a few dozen images with a Sony PictureStation printer connected dropped my battery power by over half, for example. The HDMI connection also
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SsSsSsSsSnake said:
draws constant power when used. I see a 10% power drop in 30 minutes with HDMI connected and in use. Fortunately, Nikon seems to not draw power when no signal is going out on the HDMI connection. In other words, you can leave the HDMI cable connected, and extra power is only consumed when the rear LCD is active.

  • A GPS connection to the camera reduces battery life. This is doubly true if you use one of the camera-powered GPS receivers, like the one made by Dawn Tech or Nikon’s own GP-1. Like the other USB connections, constant GPS use will make your battery life measured in hours, not shots. The good news is that the GP-1 responds to the Standby timer setting (Custom Setting #C2), so it’s drain can be minimized a bit by adjusting that setting. The bad news is that when the GP-1 powers down by instruction from the camera, it takes significant time for it to reacquire a signal. That’s one of the reasons why I personally prefer GPS units with their own power and fast reacquisition times.

  • The lithium-ion batteries of the D750 do not lose capacity over short periods of non-use. If you store the battery for a very long period of time, it will probably lose charge, though. It takes very long periods of time to see significant power reduction on a battery not being used (a month or

    more). See “Battery Storage” on page <100>.

  • On the other hand, the D750 is not completely quiescent when the Power switch is in the OFF position. In particular, the D750 uses an LCD overlay mechanism in the viewfinder, which requires a small, but constant power source. This overlay supplies the autofocus sensor markings, and the Image area crop if enabled). You can verify this by looking through the viewfinder while removing the battery: the display will get darker without the battery in the camera.

    The consequence of the LCD overlay needing power is that if you store a D750 with the battery in it for a month, at the end of that month you’ll have either a discharged or very low battery. Moreover, you’ll likely be running the battery fully down, which as I’ve already mentioned, is not the way to leave Lithium Ion batteries if they’re not going to be used for a period of time. Remove the battery from the camera if you’re not going to use it for long periods of time.
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SsSsSsSsSnake said:
Overall, it’s generally not a good idea to continually run your battery completely down (below 5%), as you risk a “deep discharge” cycle if you do and don’t immediately get the battery onto the charger. You can take batteries down until exhaustion if you have to, but you shouldn’t do this regularly, and you should immediately put a battery discharged this way on the charger, if possible.

One other comment: if your VR seems to act sporadically and sometimes appear to jump to a correction point instead of move gracefully, I’ll bet your battery is low (and probably down near that 5% mark). VR has a high spike in its draw when it activates. When the battery is very low, the VR system doesn’t get the power it expects and stutters. However, if your VR system seems to stutter with a full battery, that’s usually a sign that something is wrong with the VR mechanism.

• Flash use definitely increases battery consumption. Every time you use the flash, the battery in the camera is used to recharge the capacitor that the flash just drained. It’s difficult to predict just how much increase there is in battery consumption with flash, because how much flash you’re producing makes a difference. If the flash is firing at full power, the capacitor needs to be completely recharged. If you are using just a touch of fill flash or a low manual flash power level, the camera cuts off the flash early and the capacitor only needs to be topped off, not filled. A rule of thumb is this: the further you are from your subject when you use flash, the more you’re discharging the battery and the fewer shots per charge you’ll get.

Overall, the battery performance on the D750 is very good. I can’t think of an occasion where I’ve really needed more than one battery a day during normal shooting (this changes if I’m using a lot of Live View, a GPS, or a lot of internal flash). If you start the day with two fully charged EN-EL15 batteries (one in the camera, one in the MB- D16), you’re not likely to run out of power.

That said, EN-EL15 batteries are small and light, so it really doesn’t hurt to carry an extra one or two with you.

Version 1.00
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SsSsSsSsSnake said:
Final Battery Notes

The battery charger that comes with the D750 models can be used worldwide, at any voltage from 100 to 250 volts. You do need to obtain the correct cables and/or adapters for the power socket, however. Sets of socket adapters can be found at any Radio Shack and most travel stores.

Since the D750 models use an intelligent battery system, you’ll want to pay more attention to the information the camera tells you about the battery. Get accustomed to using the Battery info option just before you swap out batteries. It’ll tell you how many shots you’re actually getting per charge and help you judge how many batteries you need for a shoot. Likewise, you’ll start to notice that different types of shooting (e.g. indoors with flash versus outdoor landscapes) are giving you different values. That’s useful information to know.

Image Storage

While the D750 models have an internal memory buffer that temporarily stores data obtained from the sensor, it uses a Secure Digital memory card for final in-camera storage of digital images.

Let’s revisit a diagram I showed earlier and follow what happens:
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Too much time on your hands? :ROFLMAO: (your image aren't displaying btw)

I did know most of that tbf, but thanks (y). I do actually have the battery info menu set to my menus so that I can access it quickly, and have the camera set to use the grip battery first as this is the quickest to change if I do happen to go through two batteries (obviously to change the one in the camera I'd have to take the grip off first).

The reason for my confusion about selecting which type of battery was because I skimmed the manual as usual and misread it lol. I saw this and thought this is what the options in the menu should display :facepalm: :LOL:
Screen%20Shot%202016-04-23%20at%2007.59.18_zps40qjc58d.png


Of course if I'd only took the time to read the previous page I'd have seen this :oops: :$
Screen%20Shot%202016-04-23%20at%2008.03.11_zpssjp8x0ik.png



One day I'll learn to read :LOL:
 
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Swanseajack said:
@minnnt I know sometimes people will think it's not a nice thing to do, but I have read on here and other places, that sometimes have a few discussions on a companies Twitter or Facebook account can actually speed things up, when they seem to be dragging their feet. Maybe worth a try if they have social media accounts or possibly speaking to Nikon direct?
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That's a good idea. I've used it a few times for problem solving and got almost instant responses. Nothing to lose.
 
Thanks @Swanseajack and @skiking - it's definitely an option but as you say it's not a particularly nice thing to have to do. I can accept the time scale really but it's all the other things that have started to p*** me off. The shop is open until 5pm but the phones are closed at 4pm. They're also engaged for at least 15 minutes prior to this (off the hook perhaps?) They're pretty shoddy at replying to emails too and contacting you when they say they will (they just don't!) They claimed to have forwarded two quotes to me which they haven't but amazingly I received the email they sent to me whilst on the phone to them (to check they had the right email address).

Such a shame it's going like this as initial dealings were positive. Well, as far as them answering the phone when I rang to enquire and the pleasant conversation when dropping the camera off with them.

5 weeks and counting... Here's to the next 5... :beer:
 
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