charging D3 camera

solace

New member
I have just bought a D3 camera. For how many hours do I charge it so that I can use the camera for hours together?
 

blueiron

New member
My shop charged my battery while I purchased the camera and looked around at other equipment. The battery was indicated at 80% before charging.

On the first weekend of every month, I calibrate cycle the battery through the charger overnight and it is ready to go through the entire month without n overnight recharge. Unless you are an extremely prolific amateur or a constantly busy pro, it should last you quite a while. I imagine the cycle lasts 4 to 5 hours.
 

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Snap Happy

Senior Member
The charger for the D3 has a percentage scale on it. So when you put the battery on to charge it will tell you the percentage it is at. Then charging the battery to full will depend on how much or how little charge it already has.

At full charge I have used the D3 for about 6 to 8 hours in a day, have taken hundreds of photos in raw and jpg, gone to charge the battery and still had it at 70%.

In some cases I have gone weeks without having to recharge. Sometimes I wonder why I purchased a spare battery. It is not like I need it. The only use I had for it was when I needed to clean my sensor and the battery in the camera was only at 40 or 50%. So it was lucky I had a fully charged spare with me.
 

STM

Senior Member
Something to watch with D3 or any other DSLR battery is memory effect. Nikon can swear until the cows come home that their batteries don't have a "memory effect" but they do. It is best to let the batteries run down almost to the point of where the camera shuts off. If you have a spare battery this is actually a good thing to do. Granted, the D3 and D700 hundred are somewhat different when it comes to batteries but what I do with my D700 is I have a lithium ion battery in both the camera and battery pack. I have the thing set up to pull off the battery back first and then switch to the camera. Unfortunatly it will not do it automatically, a firmware fix I wish Nikon would implement. When that battery hits the level where the camera shuts off, I simply tell the camera to switch to the camera body and I go and recharge the battery from the battery pack. If I need more juice, I always have the alternate battery holder handy where I have 6 rechargeable alkalines in place. I also have a small DC to AC converter in the car all the time so I can actually plug the charger into the aux power outlet and charge camera batteries while I am driving. They are not very expensive and it may be a lifesaver if you run out of juice and need a way to recharge the batteries. I let the battery in the camera drain down to zero and then move to the battery pack again. This does two things; first it eliminates memory effect, and two, both batteries will receive the same number of charges. I keep a DC to AC converter in the car, which is a handy little doodad to have, so I can actually plug the battery charger into the aux power outlet and charge camera batteries while I am driving. It also works like a champ to run or charge a laptop too.
 
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