Battery Life - Nikon D300 Complete Manual

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Battery Life

You'll probably be surprised to learn that the D300 uses very

little energy when it sleeps between shots (<3mA). When

turned OFF, it uses almost as much (typically <2mA). Thus, it

makes little sense to turn the camera OFF between shots

(unless you're using a Microdrive; see "Microdrives" on page

The D300, like the D200 that preceded it, uses more energy

during shooting if you take NEF (or TIFF) images than it does if

you shoot only JPEG. Nikon's published battery life numbers

for the D300 are based upon JPEG shooting.

Nikon's manual gives several battery life figures, but let's

concentrate for the moment on using the camera with the

supplied EN-EL3e: approximately 1000 shots using the CIPA

standard test, approximately 3000 shots using Nikon's own

test (the CIPA test uses the flash).

More rigorous testing produces some more useful data:

Shooting any form of NEF (or TIFF) reduces shots per

charge significantly. This is an unexpected result and

unique to the D200 and D300 bodies at the moment. The

only explanation I can think of is that something in the

write-to-card mechanism is drawing power unexpectedly.

But it's clear and repeatable: the minute you begin to

shoot NEF or TIFF your shots per charge reduces

significantly. This is not a manageable parameter; if you

shoot NEF or TIFF, you get reduced battery life, period.

A full image review on the color LCD reduces shots per

charge by perhaps as much as half. If you have Image

Review set to On and the Monitor Off time (Custom

Setting #C4) 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 about half. This,

however, is a manageable parameter, and the curve is

Thom Hogan's Complete Guide to the Nikon D300