Batteries to go

rick.osgood

Senior Member
I will be purchasing a D7100 in the next week or so and will be taking a two week trip to Costa Rica this winter. How many batteries would you have on hand and would you go Nikon or are the acceptable alternatives?

Thanks
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Nikon DSLR batteries are so danged good these days that two should be more than enough.

Unless you plan on shooting hours of video.
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
I will be purchasing a D7100 in the next week or so and will be taking a two week trip to Costa Rica this winter. How many batteries would you have on hand and would you go Nikon or are the acceptable alternatives?
You'll be able to bring and use an AC charger, yes? I'd want to have two or three batteries total.

While I do have and use Nikon batteries, I have also found Wasabi branded batteries are just as good and cost a fraction of what Nikon wants.

For $40 you can get a pair of Wasabi batteries and a dual-charger (looove my dual charger!): Batteries w/Dual Charger
 

weebee

Senior Member
I have two 32 gig cards in mine. Even after a two week vacation shooting raw I filled one card and had almost 29 gigs on my second card. But, I always have two spares in case.
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Thanks guys... now, if I may, how many and what size SD cards?

Kinda depends on what you're shooting (small JPEGS, RAW+JPEG Large Fine, video), how much you shoot.............

Personally, I shoot with about 40 16g cards between all my cameras. 16g is about right for the number of .NEFs I take in a day.
 
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Whiskeyman

Senior Member
I will be purchasing a D7100 in the next week or so and will be taking a two week trip to Costa Rica this winter. How many batteries would you have on hand and would you go Nikon or are the acceptable alternatives?

Thanks

Thanks guys... now, if I may, how many and what size SD cards?

First of all, we have no idea how many shots you're planning on taking. Are you going on a photo adventure and going to shoot a lot of photos, or just a casual vacation and will take a few shots to record your trip. In addition, are you going to have access to a battery charger during the trip, and are you taking a computer and/or hard drive do load your photos on as the memory cards get filled up?

As far as what size of SD to get, I can only tell you what I would now purchase which is either 32 or 64 GB cards; how many you need is another question. I tend to use either the Sandisk or Lexar brands, and look for a minimum speed of about 90-100 mb/sec, but those are likely faster than my camera can write to the card. Whatever size you get, make sure that they are not micro SD cards with an adaptor, which might not really fit your camera. I'd look at online camera stores such as Adorama or B&H Photo for these to get an idea of how much they cost at the time, but they are relatively inexpensive.

Let us know.

WM
 
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Blacktop

Senior Member
Good advice there @Whiskeyman. If I may add, that the rear LCD display screen will use a lot of juice if you keep looking at it after every shot.

On my D7100 I could get about 500 shots with the battery only going to about 50% and I do look at the screen a lot.
I would not go on vacation without some ability to re-charge batteries.
 

rick.osgood

Senior Member
First of all, we have no idea how many shots you're planning on taking. Are you going on a photo adventure and going to shoot a lot of photos, or just a casual vacation and will take a few shots to record your trip. In addition, are you going to have access to a battery charger during the trip, and are you taking a computer and/or hard drive do load your photos on as the memory cards get filled up?

As far as what size of SD to get, I can only tell you what I would now purchase which is either 32 or 64 GB cards; how many you need is another question. I tend to use either the Sandisk or Lexar brands, and look for a minimum speed of about 90-100 mb/sec, but those are likely faster than my camera can write to the card. Whatever size you get, make sure that they are not micro SD cards with an adaptor, which might not really fit your camera. I'd look at online camera stores such as Adorama or B&H Photo for these to get an idea of how much they cost at the time, but they are relatively inexpensive.

Let us know.

WM


Understand your point. Thanks for the reply
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Thanks guys... now, if I may, how many and what size SD cards?
I'll just remind you the D7100 has two card slots... So with, say for instance, two 32GB cards you can either have a total of 64GB of storage on you at all times, or you can designate one card as "Backup" and have an automatic, "Oh, S--T!!" backup copy of 32GB worth of photo's. Just thought I'd point that out. As for how many, I like having two full sets of cards (four total) and I sleep better at night if I have three sets. That's probably a little over the top, but there you have it.
 
My wife shoots a d7100 and I shoot the d750. We go for extended shoots all the time. It is rare if we even fill up one of the two 32gb cards in our cameras. Same for batteries they last all day. We do carry three spares just in case. I carry a laptop with me and download all the photos into it so I can look at the day's work a format the cards for the next day. I also charge the batteries so I have 5 fresh batteries to start the next day


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Whiskeyman

Senior Member
Understand your point. Thanks for the reply

rick.osgood, I wasn't trying to make a point, but just to give a bit of advice on what works for me and to get more information from you so that we can truly assist you. A trip to Costa Rica is a wonderful opportunity on so many fronts. (I went to Belize years ago.) The best thing you're doing is to get the camera well before the trip, instead of immediately before hand. You will have ample time to familiarize yourself with the camera before you go, which is more than some people do.

BTW, what lens/lenses are you going to have to take on the trip?

WM
 

rick.osgood

Senior Member
rick.osgood, I wasn't trying to make a point, but just to give a bit of advice on what works for me and to get more information from you so that we can truly assist you. A trip to Costa Rica is a wonderful opportunity on so many fronts. (I went to Belize years ago.) The best thing you're doing is to get the camera well before the trip, instead of immediately before hand. You will have ample time to familiarize yourself with the camera before you go, which is more than some people do.

BTW, what lens/lenses are you going to have to take on the trip?

WM

I understood your first reply as I need to provide more info when posting questions so I can receive better answers. I was not offended and appreciate your opinions. The lenses I have now are the kit 18-55, 70-200 and ?? - 300.
 

rick.osgood

Senior Member
I'll just remind you the D7100 has two card slots... So with, say for instance, two 32GB cards you can either have a total of 64GB of storage on you at all times, or you can designate one card as "Backup" and have an automatic, "Oh, S--T!!" backup copy of 32GB worth of photo's. Just thought I'd point that out. As for how many, I like having two full sets of cards (four total) and I sleep better at night if I have three sets. That's probably a little over the top, but there you have it.

I had read that as well. My thinking was bring 2 sets and have a backup card for each set.
 

480sparky

Senior Member
My SOP is to utilize both cards to save the images on, the second card being 'back-up;. I do not plan on reformatting any cards when away from my primary back-up system at home.

However, if I do end up filling all my cards up and need to reformat cards to continue shooting, I will only reformat my even-numbered cards. The odd-numbered cards will not be reformatted until all my images are ingesting into my primary back-up system when I get home.
 
I had read that as well. My thinking was bring 2 sets and have a backup card for each set.

on average a RAW file is say 25mb that means 1300 or so shot per card so 2600 shots. That is a lot of shooting for a day. I you shoot that much I would call it "Spray and Pray" means you are a just firing away without thinking about what you are shooting. I was guilty of this in the early days. Slow down and think about your shots BEFORE you shoot. You will shoot less and get more good shots.

If you shoot for 10 hours a day you would have to shoot 4 shots a minute for every minute for 10 hours to fill up the cards in the camera. That is a hard work day and not a fun vacation day.

I think I did the math correctly.
4 x 60 = 240 per hour
240 x 10 = 2400 per 10 hours

2400 x 24mb = 57.6 GB this gives you a little fudge room for larger than normal shots.
 

MaxBlake

Senior Member
I would do two batteries, but I'd also be sure to have a charger at the ready, one that will accommodate both indoors and a car.
 
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