Nikon Z9 Battery Drain

[Bill J Boyd]

I have a Nikon Z9 with a EN-EL18d battery (both purchased new in 4Q22.  I have used them pretty much every day since then and recharge battery every night.  In last couple of weeks it seems the battery drains quickly.  Last night at bedtime it was fully charged at 100%.  When I got up this morning the charge level was 78%.  And,camera was OFF all night.  Any thoughts on why this is happening?  I have never calibrated battery (in fact, I did not know you could).  I am calibrating now, but I don’t know if that will help (and calibration seems to take a long time).  BTW...I have ordered a new battery from B&H and it arrives Monday.  I never had a spare battery due to hight cost, but definitely need one now.

Any thoughts?

[ShunCheung]

A couple of things come to mind:

• Have you recently switched on Snapbridge or Bluetooth? If the Z9 is connected to a mobile phone via Snapbridge, that may continue to drain your battery. Try to turn on the airplane mode unless you really need to turn that off.
• Do you have any Sony E to Nikon Z adapter mounted on your Z9? I heard of a case that one such third-party adapter would drain the battery on a Z8, even though the camera is switched off.

It is always good to have a second battery anyway, as Li-ion will gradually go bad, at least gradually lose its recharging capability.

[Bill J Boyd]

2 minutes ago, ShunCheung said:

A couple of things come to mind:

• Have you recently switched on Snapbridge or Bluetooth? If the Z9 is connected to a mobile phone via Snapbridge, that may continue to drain your battery. Try to turn on the airplane mode unless you really need to turn that off.
• Do you have any Sony E to Nikon Z adapter mounted on your Z9? I heard of a case that one such third-party adapter would drain the battery on a Z8, even though the camera is switched off.

It is always good to have a second battery anyway, as Li-ion will gradually go bad, at least gradually lose its recharging capability.

-- I do NOT use Snapbridge or Bluetooth

--I am using a Nikon FTZII adapter

[ShunCheung]

29 minutes ago, Bill J Boyd said:

-- I do NOT use Snapbridge or Bluetooth

--I am using a Nikon FTZII adapter

Please double check the airplane mode is on and see whether that makes a difference. Don’t think the FTZ will drain your battery, but third-party adapters could be a problem. In any case, remove the FTZ overnight.

[ShunCheung]

Bill, does calibration or anything help? Wonder the new battery will make a difference.

[mike_halliwell]

I guess the 'obvious' test is to fully charge it and leave it OUT of the camera overnight.

If it's down to 78% in the morning, its the battery dying.

If its still near 100% the camera is draining it for some reason.

[Bill J Boyd]

4 hours ago, ShunCheung said:

Bill, does calibration or anything help? Wonder the new battery will make a difference.

Shun, after 8-hrs calibration was still running and I discontinued it because it was my bedtime.  I did turn Airplane Mode ON and that seemed to help.  It was fully charged at 100% when I went out this morning.  Took 500+ pics over a 4-hour period and charge level was 96% which seems normal.  I think battery is just wearing out and needs replacement.  A 3rd party battery (Wasabi) arrives today, and Nikon battery arrives Monday.  

[ShunCheung]

The battery should last a lot longer than a year and half. I have EN-EL18a that came with my D5 in 2016 and are still ok.

The usual suspects are either through the lens mount or wifi/bluetooth. Otherwise, the camera may be malfunctioning. 😐

[CvhKaar]

I still think that it is a fail from Nikon, that you have to switch on "airplane Mode"to stop the camera from draining the battery when the camera is switched off, it was already that way in the D500, so this issue is known by Nikon for years already.. ..

[ShunCheung]

If the airplane mode is off, even though the camera itself is switched off, the camera can still communicate with other devices. I recently installed SnapBridge on my fairly new iPhone 15 and used that app a bit with my Z8, and I noticed that the Z8 could still communicate with the phone even though the camera is off. Therefore, potentially there could be battery drain when such communication is in progress. I find SnapBridge very frustrating to use as it is not robust software and the communication is flaky. If one is not using it, it is best to switch on the airplane mode.

[ilkka_nissila]

9 hours ago, CvhKaar said:

I still think that it is a fail from Nikon, that you have to switch on "airplane Mode"to stop the camera from draining the battery when the camera is switched off, it was already that way in the D500, so this issue is known by Nikon for years already.. ..

You don't really need to turn on airplane mode, you can simply turn off all the communication features of the camera individually. Airplane mode is simply a shortcut that turns all of them off using one menu switch.

 

I never observed undue battery drain with Nikons (apart from the first use where internal batteries are charged).

[Bill J Boyd]

New battery arrived today from B&H.  BTW...new batteries do not come with battery door (took a while to figure out how to remove that & put on new battery).  Also, I had Airplane Mode ON and when I got home from 4+ hrs in field this morning the battery charge was 95%.

[ShunCheung]

The BL-7 battery chamber cover for the Z9 is a separate, $37.95 item. I have an extra one on a separate battery so that it is ready to be inserted.

[CvhKaar]

13 hours ago, ilkka_nissila said:

You don't really need to turn on airplane mode, you can simply turn off all the communication features of the camera individually. Airplane mode is simply a shortcut that turns all of them off using one menu switch.

 

I never observed undue battery drain with Nikons (apart from the first use where internal batteries are charged).

Same fail still, if you shut down the camera, all those communication functions should shut down too, i think.

In my D500, with all comm's functions set to "off" ( including the "Send when Off" for Bluetooth ) , there is still a difference in drain when airplane mode is not set to "on" , all available updates to the software are used so there is no improvement. 

Off course some very minor battery usage is still there because the internal clock uses some micro ampere's ...

[ilkka_nissila]

3 hours ago, CvhKaar said:

Same fail still, if you shut down the camera, all those communication functions should shut down too, i think.

In my D500, with all comm's functions set to "off" ( including the "Send when Off" for Bluetooth ) , there is still a difference in drain when airplane mode is not set to "on" , all available updates to the software are used so there is no improvement. 

Off course some very minor battery usage is still there because the internal clock uses some micro ampere's ...

No, the snapbridge connectivity remains if the camera is turned off, that's the whole idea of the design based on a combination of low-power bluetooth and wifi: the low-power bluetooth remains in operation and transfers files even when the camera is off and is not disconnected. However, it can only transfer small files suitable for emailing or social media using the low-power bluetooth mode. Wifi is used for larger files and it is unfortunately easily disconnected (on my iPhone it always disconnects if I use another app on the phone than Snapbridge itself, so it can be frustrating, but this is because the iPhone doesn't want one app to monopolize wifi, I suspect). Anyway, if you turn off Snapbridge and wifi, it should not use those wireless communication functions. However, airplane mode may be the safest way to do it with any kind of certainty. As I noted I have not had battery drain issues, but I don't have the D500. Maybe there is a bug.

[CvhKaar]

Maybe the Drain issue has been solved in the Z-series, but the D500 ( which cannot do WiFi through a network, without the WT-7) , it remains an issue, the bluetooth just uses to much energie when turned on in the D500 ..

[ShunCheung]

The D500 has the feature to send to a smart device as well as has the airplane mode. I always have the airplane mode set to ON, on my D500, and I never have any battery drain issue. At least nothing that I would worry about. E.g. the frame counter on the top LCE will remain on, and I am sure it drains the battery a little over time.

However, on the D500, the airplane mode is part of the Set Up menu. On the Z8 and Z9, there is a separate Network Menu to collect the communication-related setting.

[rodeo_joe1]

On 3/1/2024 at 8:10 PM, Bill J Boyd said:

 I have used them pretty much every day since then and recharge battery every night.

Just an observation: I don't think repeated regular shallow discharge and recharge cycles serves the batteries well.

So, how far discharged do your batteries usually get in a day Bill? If it's only to 50% or above, then it's probably better to continue using them until they really need recharging. 

Apparently Lithium-Ion cells are supposed to stand over 500 charge/discharge cycles; that's according to some published specs. Which would be nearly 18 months of daily deep discharge use. 

I usually use my camera batteries until they're at 10% or less before changing them and putting them in the "to be recharged" space in my gadget bag. That way I've had several years use out of genuine Nikon batteries. However, that's using 3 or 4 batteries in rotation. 

On 3/4/2024 at 8:44 PM, Bill J Boyd said:

BTW...new batteries do not come with battery door (took a while to figure out how to remove that & put on new battery).

What!? You have to remove the battery door to change batteries on a Z9? That's just crazy. 

Edited March 8 by rodeo_joe1

[Bill J Boyd]

2 hours ago, rodeo_joe1 said:

Just an observation: I don't think repeated regular shallow discharge and recharge cycles serves the batteries well.

So, how far discharged do your batteries usually get in a day Bill? If it's only to 50% or above, then it's probably better to continue using them until they really need recharging. 

Apparently Lithium-Ion cells are supposed to stand over 500 charge/discharge cycles; that's according to some published specs. Which would be nearly 18 months of daily deep discharge use. 

I usually use my camera batteries until they're at 10% or less before changing them and putting them in the "to be recharged" space in my gadget bag. That way I've had several years use out of genuine Nikon batteries. However, that's using 3 or 4 batteries in rotation. 

What!? You have to remove the battery door to change batteries on a Z9? That's just crazy. 

1)...I just started checking battery life a couple of weeks ago.  Change level was at 30+%, I shot for an hour and it completely died.  I now own backup batteries.  Shot for 4-hours this morning and battery charge was at 97%.

2).  Battery door attaches to battery.  Did not know that when I ordered spare batteries.  I now have spare batteriies all with door attached to make it easy to swap out.

[ShunCheung]

The Nikon D4, D4s, D5, D6, and Z9 can share batteries. However, since the size of the grip is different from mirrorless as the body is considerably thinner, they require a different battery chamber cover. My D5 uses the BL-6 (green) but the Z9 uses the BL-7, yellow. You can see the shape is different. You need this cover to hold the EN-EL18* battery in place.

[Bill J Boyd]

Thanks Shun....