Getting Great Battery Life
© 2006 KenRockwell.com
I get
my goodies at Ritz,
Amazon
and Adorama.
It helps me publish this site when you get yours from those links,
too.
INTRODUCTION
This
isn't about how to get a lot of shots per charge. That's easy: use
your LCD as little as possible and spend as little time as possible
in the menus or with the meter on. Turn the LCD review OFF while
shooting. Easy.
This is
how to get years of great service from expensive batteries. Some
people always seem to have problems while others have them last for
years.
I've made
24,000 shots on my D200 in the past 8
months. I use two
batteries in rotation, and each still reads "new."
I always
have good luck with batteries. My Nokia cell phone is from the
1990s and its lithium-ion battery is still working as well as it
did new. I've charged it well over 1,000 times. I used my cell
phone all day (1,500 minutes a month) for most of those
years.
Ditto for
my 3-year-old Apple iBook laptop. It still runs like new. Each
charge runs for hours and hours.
HOW DO I DO IT?
Battery Type
As you
can read on my battery page,
Li-ion batteries need a very different kind of care than the old,
heavy Ni-Cds and Ni-MH batteries did.
These
suggestions only apply with Li-ion batteries. These are the
lightweight ones that are custom-fitted to your phone, laptop or
camera. They have weird voltages like 3.7V or 7.4V. These are the
dedicated batteries used in all modern digital SLRs like the
D80,
D200,
D2X,
D100,
D50,
D70s,
Canon 20D
and any point-and-shoot that takes a dedicated battery. Hint: these
batteries will be marked "Li-ion."
This does
not apply to ordinary AA or other standard size rechargeable cells.
Those are Ni-Cd or Ni-MH and want to be 100% discharged before they
are charged.
I've
never bothered with off-brand batteries. I always use batteries
from the original maker.
Charge
Often!
Modern
Li-ion batteries love to be charged often. They don't like being
fully discharged. This is completely opposite from older style
batteries.
I charge
my batteries every night. My cell phone goes on its charger at
night and comes off in the morning.
Alternate Between Two
Batteries
I have
two batteries for my D200.
After
every use I put the battery on the charger. I take the second
battery from my case and put it in my D200.
When the
first battery finishes charging I put it in my bag as a fully
charged spare.
I repeat
this continuously. This way each battery is used only half of the
time and I always have a full battery in my camera and a fully
charged spare in my case.
I don't
bother if I've used it for only a few shots or used less than 10%
of the charge.
It also
means that I never try to suck either one dry. Li-ion batteries
prefer frequent and shallow discharges. If you do that you'll get
far more total energy out of them.
I don't
know the exact numbers, but you'll get about four times as many
charge cycles out of them if you only use 50% of the charge each
time, and twenty times as many cycles if you only use 25% of the
charge each time.
Even
without a second battery I've gotten great life with frequent
charging. My D70 only has one battery, and after over two years and
tens of thousands of shots it also runs like new.
SUMMARY
Camera
batteries have come a long way in the past few years. I've not had
any problems, just loads of power. Li-ion are the best: they weigh
very little, they pack loads of power and they don't need any
babying.
Charging
Li-ion batteries is like lunch: do it early and often.
|