D200 battery charging

[davey h]

Hello to all. Havindg purchased a D200 and know about the short battery life.

Would anyone know if i have to run the battery completely flat before

recharging. ie if i was to go out and take approx 100 pics and want to go out

the following day not wanting to run out of battery life. I hope to buy another

spare battery soon thanks for any help.

[walterh]

In theory it is better to drain the battery to say 5%-10% and then recharge because the number of charge cycles is limited. (We can assume 2000-4000 cycles but I do not know if Nikon gives any numbers) Certainly you should not drain the battery completely because this may hurt it. I have not seen a test yet when exactly the D200 will cut off power and how much residual capacity is left in the battery but assume the D200 does not allow a deep discharge. This still could happen with time if you leave a battery for weeks uncharged after the D200 refuses to work because of flat battery. If I get around to it I will measure the residual capacity but perhaps someone did this already.

 

Now for regular shooting I would not worry too much and recharge after say 200 images. If you have some important shooting to do I would recharge even after 50 shots or a longer storage time say a few weeks (never happens here^^) until you get your backup battery. I did not get a second battery , instead I got the grip that will accept 6 AA cells that cost me peanuts including a second set for backup. The grip will also accept the regular D200 battery and this way I got three sets. This way the grip seems actually cheap :-P

[paulus]

I have no answer to your question, but I have the same problem. I have set certain options to extend batery life. On page 207 in the manual you can find that the folowing list will reduce batery life:<p>

1) using the moniotor (LCD)<br>

2) keeping the shutter release button pressed half way<br>

3) repeated auto focus<br>

4) taking NEF/RAW photos<br>

5) slow shutter speeds<br>

<p>What I did was:<p>

ad 1) switch off automatic Image review (P141)<br>

ad 1) set monitor of delay to 10s (P157)<br>

ad 1) keep lcd-illumination off (P159)<br>

ad 2) this is mainly exposure meter so I set Auto meter off delay (P157) to shortest time (4s)<br>

ad 3) use single and not continues auto focus whenever possible.<br>

<p>For point 4 and 5 there is not much to do about, unless you like jpg's and high ISO.<p>

other 1) switch of AF-Assist illiuminator (P152)<br>

other 2) switch off beep (p158) (probably does not safe much battery but every thing does help)<br>

<p>I hope this helps everyone to safe on batery life. If I missed something, please let me know.

[davey h]

Thanks guys for your valuble help

[david_h._hartman]

<em>Would anyone know if i have to run the battery

completely flat before recharging. --david harrison<br>

</em><br>

Absolutely not!<br>

<br>

It is best to drain a lithium-ion battery only to about 50% then

recharged. They can be recharged at any time and partial charges

are fine. The first about 70% of the charge is fast then the

charger slows down to protect the battery. There are no fast

chargers at this time though much faster charging lithium-ion

batteries are under development.<br>

<br>

These are <u>not</u> NiMH or NiCd batteries. The best information

Ive found is hear...<br>

<br>

<a href="http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-23.htm"

target="_new"><u>How to charge - when to charge table</u></a><br>

<br>

<a href="http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm"

target="_new"><u>How to prolong lithium-based batteries</u></a><br>

<br>

Here is the home page...<br>

<br>

<a href="http://www.batteryuniversity.com/index.htm"

target="_new"><u>Welcome to Battery University</u></a><br>

<br>

Best,<br>

<br>

Dave Hartman.

[walterh]

Sorry for the confusion - I was just loading new batteries into my D200 grip and had those NiMH cells I use there in mind. The EN-EL batteries are of course based on LiIon cells.

[leicaglow]

I don't know if this helps, but I was an early complainer about the D200 battery life. I use the same two batteries in an MB-200 and I am clearly getting much more battery life than I used to. When I bought my D200 in January, I was getting only 150 shots and the thing would go dead, even though it was off. I just came back from a weekend of shooting and got 500+ shots and barely dented the battery meter. This is a good sign to me. I don't chimp very much, but I shoot both RAW and JPEG of the same shots.

[ShunCheung]

Michael, so any idea why there is such a huge difference? Is is solely the result of using two batteries in the MB-200 or somehow your batteries have "warmed up" since you initially bought them in January?

 

Additionally, is climate change part of the equation? If you used your D200 in very cold weather back in January, that might contribute to its short life. Now the northern hemisphere is in the middle of summer and the warmer temperature may prolong battery life.