Brand new Nikon D610 battery life much MUCH lower than expected....

Mister Bumbles

Mister Bumbles

Senior Member
So, every review I have read for a Nikon D610 *claims* 900+ shots per charge. I fully charged my battery when I first got the camera, and only managed 225 shots. :eyetwitch:

I shot in RAW, with VR turned on, and only used the LCD a little to check exposure a few times. About 25 of the images had the flash turned on default levels. The battery is being charged again, and then I'll see what happens on the next charge, but it seems like I should have gotten far more shots. Is there some sort of break-in period for Nikon batteries? :confused:

My 7-year-old Canon 40D managed around 1,000 shots per charge, with image stabilization turned on, in raw. I only used the ONE battery for that entire 7 years and even when I sold it a couple weeks ago, it still would manage around 800-900 shots per charge. :rolleyes:
 
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SteveH

Senior Member
New batteries often don't last to their full potential from the first couple of charges - I would try fully cycling the battery (Fully charged to fully discharged) two or three times, and by that point you should start to see much better performance. The in built flash does hit the battery harder, as do long exposures but even so you should see more than ~200 shots.

If after a few charge cycles you still aren't happy, I'd contact Nikon or the reseller and ask for a replacement battery.
 
Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
I think the flash uses up a lot of battery power, but, as was mentioned, you might want to charge your battery a few times to get it to it's max.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
No doubt in my mind something's not right. Hopefully it's either a bad battery or a bum charger because those are the easy, relatively cheap fixes. You might want to try a Wasabi battery, they're about $20 on Amazon and see where that gets you. I've used a lot of Wasabi batteries and know from experience they're as good, possibly a little better, than Nikon OEM batteries for a fraction of the cost.

....
 
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sonicbuffalo_RIP

Senior Member
Please remember that Horoschope Fish works for Wasabi (just kidding)......but you should be getting more pictures than that. I would do what others have suggested, but with one caveat. I would make sure I drained the battery all the way down the first few times before recharging. I'm not sure about Li-on batteries, but on some rechargeables, that helps to calibrate the battery for a full charge. Try it, and make sure you have a spare (yes you can use Wasabi) so that you don't get caught short taking those special shots. Good luck!
 
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jay_dean

Senior Member
I think we all know Company 'claims' are just that. I think Audi claim my car should do 50mpg, but it couldn't do that if i was freewheeling down a mountain. Nikon camera batteries have taken a backwards step recently, the D3S battery life blows the D4 battery away, though the new D810 battery is an improvement on the D800 apparently. The battery will continue to discharge even when the camera is switched off, but it takes weeks drain down. That said, it is a very low amount of shots you're getting. What does your in-camera meter say about your battery condition?
 
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SteveH

Senior Member
I guess the claim as to how many shots you get per charge is similar to a car's MPG - It can't be predicted as to how each user (Or driver) will use the equipment.... With DSLR batteries, it will depend on the use of flash, shutter speed, VR, focus modes and air temperature - All too variable to give a definite figure.

I recently took my D7100 to a zoo followed by a trip to a castle at night. At the zoo, I took 630 shots, which used up just 1/3rd of the full battery, then that evening, 10 long exposures of between 15-50 seconds took another 1/3rd of the battery.
 
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PapaST

Senior Member
At this stage of the game I guess trying the whole "condition your battery" thing wouldn't hurt. But methinks there's something way off on that battery. If everything is new I would start exploring a warranty replacement. Out of the box you should get much more battery life than that considering the shooting conditions you mentioned. And you shouldn't have to massage a battery to life when you first buy it either. Make a Nikon Rep's day today and give them a call. Use that Bumbley Charm.
 
hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
I agree you should have gotten a much higher quantity of photos out of the charge. When I took some theater photos for the local high school--although none were flash--I took 800+ photos and still had juice left in the battery. :eek: I even reviewed a few of the photos from time to time when I questioned whether or not I overexposed highlights and also to check if my shutter speed was fast enough to stop any blur.

Try one of the aftermarket batteries. If you charge them in the same charger and they don't hold a charge, then most likely it is a faulty charger. Or try charging that battery in James' charger. That might help narrow down whether it is the battery or the charger.
 
Mister Bumbles

Mister Bumbles

Senior Member
SteveH said:
New batteries often don't last to their full potential from the first couple of charges - I would try fully cycling the battery (Fully charged to fully discharged) two or three times, and by that point you should start to see much better performance. The in built flash does hit the battery harder, as do long exposures but even so you should see more than ~200 shots.

If after a few charge cycles you still aren't happy, I'd contact Nikon or the reseller and ask for a replacement battery.
Click to expand...
Thanks Steve, I will see how many shots I get from this battery charge before calling Nikon! :)

Marcel said:
I think the flash uses up a lot of battery power, but, as was mentioned, you might want to charge your battery a few times to get it to it's max.
Click to expand...
I'll give 'er a whack, see what happens. Still seems kind of fishy! ;)

Horoscope Fish said:
No doubt in my mind something's not right. Hopefully it's either a bad battery or a bum charger because those are the easy, relatively cheap fixes. You might want to try a Wasabi battery, they're about $20 on Amazon and see where that gets you. I've used a lot of Wasabi batteries and know from experience they're as good, possibly a little better, than Nikon OEM batteries for a fraction of the cost.
Click to expand...
Push come to shove here, I've got 3 spare Watson batteries I could attempt to use. One came with my camera, the other two were a gift from Hark (Thanks Hark!).

sonicbuffalo said:
Please remember that Horoschope Fish works for Wasabi (just kidding)......but you should be getting more pictures than that. I would do what others have suggested, but with one caveat. I would make sure I drained the battery all the way down the first few times before recharging. I'm not sure about Li-on batteries, but on some rechargeables, that helps to calibrate the battery for a full charge. Try it, and make sure you have a spare (yes you can use Wasabi) so that you don't get caught short taking those special shots. Good luck!
Click to expand...
I'll give my first Watson spare a charge today and see how that holds up against the Nikon battery!

jaydean said:
I think we all know Company 'claims' are just that. I think Audi claim my car should do 50mpg, but it couldn't do that if i was freewheeling down a mountain. Nikon camera batteries have taken a backwards step recently, the D3S battery life blows the D4 battery away, though the new D810 battery is an improvement on the D800 apparently. The battery will continue to discharge even when the camera is switched off, but it takes weeks drain down. That said, it is a very low amount of shots you're getting. What does your in-camera meter say about your battery condition?
Click to expand...
Oh, trust me.. I understand "company claims". I drove a 2002 VW Beetle for almost 6 years. $5000 in repairs / upgrades to keep it on the road in that time. I fullllly understand how things are blown out of proportion in favor of the company sometimes. I now drive a Ford again. Three years, no problems.

Interesting note about the battery. I put it in the charger last night and went to bed. Got up, the battery was 'charged'. I popped it into the camera and checked the in-camera condition meter. It says the charge is only 98%, zero shots, and the condition of the battery is 'new'. Shouldn't it show 100 percent since it JUST came out of the charger? Or did it randomly discharge 2 percent after the end of it's charge cycle while it waited for me to get it this morning?

SteveH said:
I guess the claim as to how many shots you get per charge is similar to a car's MPG - It can't be predicted as to how each user (Or driver) will use the equipment.... With DSLR batteries, it will depend on the use of flash, shutter speed, VR, focus modes and air temperature - All too variable to give a definite figure.

I recently took my D7100 to a zoo followed by a trip to a castle at night. At the zoo, I took 630 shots, which used up just 1/3rd of the full battery, then that evening, 10 long exposures of between 15-50 seconds took another 1/3rd of the battery.
Click to expand...
I know conditions can cause issues too, but I was using it inside of a 65-degree room the entire time. I figured it should be good to go like my old Canon was. We'll see what happens after last nights charge.

PapaST said:
At this stage of the game I guess trying the whole "condition your battery" thing wouldn't hurt. But methinks there's something way off on that battery. If everything is new I would start exploring a warranty replacement. Out of the box you should get much more battery life than that considering the shooting conditions you mentioned. And you shouldn't have to massage a battery to life when you first buy it either. Make a Nikon Rep's day today and give them a call. Use that Bumbley Charm.
Click to expand...
Ah yes, the Bumbley charm.. the thing I have that I don't always know I have that works like a charm... sometimes. *chuckle*. I'll give the battery one more chance (just pulled it off an all-night charge) and we'll see how it goes!

 
Mister Bumbles

Mister Bumbles

Senior Member
hark said:
I agree you should have gotten a much higher quantity of photos out of the charge. When I took some theater photos for the local high school--although none were flash--I took 800+ photos and still had juice left in the battery. :eek: I even reviewed a few of the photos from time to time when I questioned whether or not I overexposed highlights and also to check if my shutter speed was fast enough to stop any blur.

Try one of the aftermarket batteries. If you charge them in the same charger and they don't hold a charge, then most likely it is a faulty charger. Or try charging that battery in James' charger. That might help narrow down whether it is the battery or the charger.
Click to expand...

Of COURSE you would reply while I was mid-massive reply to everyone! ;) James' D7000 arrives today, and then we'll charge his battery for him first, and go from there. But as I had just mentioned, even just fresh off the charger, the camera says the battery is already down to 98 percent, seems fishy to me!
 
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Pretzel

Senior Member
1) Lithium Ion batteries really don't need all that conditioning from the get go. A lot of people are stuck in the rut they used back when NiCad was the rechargeable battery king, so they assume the same standards carry over, but really... they don't. The new Ni-Mh batteries are WAY better, and Li-Ion took it even a step farther. Some will NOT believe this and argue to the contrary... but I can speak to one of the first tiny little iPod nano units from... geez, '05 or '06, that gets stored for long times, gets charged sporadically, and is still going strong. My son's iPod touch sees a lot more use (not sure how old it is, but yeeeeeeeeeears), but gets put back on the charger every single night with (usually) less than 25% discharge (per "conditioning" rules, that's bad, right?) and is still going strong. Per the old rules, that would "teach" the battery to only have a 25% life, but that's not true. When we take a long road trip, he can play that thing FOREVER, without a break, and still have battery life to spare. Plus, the cool thing? It lasted just as long on it's first charge as it did the last full charge. Li-Ion batteries just do that.

2) 225 shots is not nearly enough battery life, unless you were in some crazy wild extreme situation. If it fails to perform after the 2nd charging, use the stinkin' warranty! Don't waste time "conditioning" a brand new battery that doesn't need it - it means you've got either a bad battery or a bad charger. I use the same battery in my D7100, and brand new, out of the box, first charge... I took well over 600 pics before I charged it again, and it wasn't dead, nor did I have a "low battery" warning. Granted, I wasn't using the on-board flash (speedlight, lots), but I'm one of those "hacks" that checks the screen regularly and scrolls back and forth, zooms in and out, etc. I was using RAW + JPG to both card slots, VR, timer shots, and all the other features too, as I was playing with my new toy! The D610 is a full frame, yes, compared to my DX, but I can't imagine it consuming that much more power, even with 25 "flash" shots.

3) If all of that doesn't fix it, there's something unusual in the camera somewhere that's putting a hard drain on the battery, but again... use that warranty. Odds are, though, it's probably the battery and/or charger. It happens. Not often, but it does, and it should be an easy fix.
 
Mister Bumbles

Mister Bumbles

Senior Member
Well, this is odd. The battery has been in the camera for less than 2 minutes, and has dropped from 98 percent to 97 percent. And the camera hasn't DONE anything. That doesn't seem right at all.

Waited another 2 minutes... and now the battery says 99 percent. Something seems very fishy. Is the battery condition meter like... give +/- 2 percent leeway or something?

023.gif
 
hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Mister Bumbles said:
Of COURSE you would reply while I was mid-massive reply to everyone! ;)
Click to expand...

Of course! ;)

Pretzel said:
3) If all of that doesn't fix it, there's something unusual in the camera somewhere that's putting a hard drain on the battery, but again... use that warranty. Odds are, though, it's probably the battery and/or charger. It happens. Not often, but it does, and it should be an easy fix.
Click to expand...

Someone recently posted about a similar problem with a different camera. His battery was constantly discharged. He took it to Nikon and found it was some setting that didn't get reset when he reset the entire camera. Hmm...was it @nickt who alluded to the problem? :confused: Did you make a lot of setting changes?
 
Mister Bumbles

Mister Bumbles

Senior Member
Pretzel said:
1) Lithium Ion batteries really don't need all that conditioning from the get go. A lot of people are stuck in the rut they used back when NiCad was the rechargeable battery king, so they assume the same standards carry over, but really... they don't. The new Ni-Mh batteries are WAY better, and Li-Ion took it even a step farther. Some will NOT believe this and argue to the contrary... but I can speak to one of the first tiny little iPod nano units from... geez, '05 or '06, that gets stored for long times, gets charged sporadically, and is still going strong. My son's iPod touch sees a lot more use (not sure how old it is, but yeeeeeeeeeears), but gets put back on the charger every single night with (usually) less than 25% discharge (per "conditioning" rules, that's bad, right?) and is still going strong. Per the old rules, that would "teach" the battery to only have a 25% life, but that's not true. When we take a long road trip, he can play that thing FOREVER, without a break, and still have battery life to spare. Plus, the cool thing? It lasted just as long on it's first charge as it did the last full charge. Li-Ion batteries just do that.

2) 225 shots is not nearly enough battery life, unless you were in some crazy wild extreme situation. If it fails to perform after the 2nd charging, use the stinkin' warranty! Don't waste time "conditioning" a brand new battery that doesn't need it - it means you've got either a bad battery or a bad charger. I use the same battery in my D7100, and brand new, out of the box, first charge... I took well over 600 pics before I charged it again, and it wasn't dead, nor did I have a "low battery" warning. Granted, I wasn't using the on-board flash (speedlight, lots), but I'm one of those "hacks" that checks the screen regularly and scrolls back and forth, zooms in and out, etc. I was using RAW + JPG to both card slots, VR, timer shots, and all the other features too, as I was playing with my new toy! The D610 is a full frame, yes, compared to my DX, but I can't imagine it consuming that much more power, even with 25 "flash" shots.

3) If all of that doesn't fix it, there's something unusual in the camera somewhere that's putting a hard drain on the battery, but again... use that warranty. Odds are, though, it's probably the battery and/or charger. It happens. Not often, but it does, and it should be an easy fix.
Click to expand...

I was going to say, as batteries go, it should have done better right off. But I'll give it a good workout today and see how it holds up. Definitely don't want to get stuck with a lemon right off after investing this much money! ;)

hark said:
Of course! ;)
Someone recently posted about a similar problem with a different camera. His battery was constantly discharged. He took it to Nikon and found it was some setting that didn't get reset when he reset the entire camera. Hmm...was it @nickt who alluded to the problem? :confused: Did you make a lot of setting changes?
Click to expand...

Oh, I'd be interested to know, if you find out? Or if @nickt replies! :D
 
Mister Bumbles

Mister Bumbles

Senior Member
Now, another thing, I'm not sure if this is normal or if it matters. Since I've not had a digital Nikon, it could be normal. But, the LCD on top (control panel) *always* shows my estimated shots remaining and which memory card slot is selected. Is that ALWAYS supposed to be on, even when the camera is turned off?
 
Last edited:
hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Mister Bumbles said:
Oh, I'd be interested to know, if you find out? Or if @nickt replies! :D
Click to expand...

I found the thread. It has to do with a custom setting for the metering. You may need to read some of the initial posts to get a gist, but if you haven't changed the setting, then something else is faulty.

http://nikonites.com/d7100/26823-nikon-d7100-heating-draining-battery-3.html#post384253

Here is the post by the OP (Original Poster) who states the cause of the battery draining:

centaur said:
I've picked up today my camera from the service.
Bad news is that I am total jerk. :triumphant:
But good news is that camera is working perfectly :p

Standby timer was set to 'no limit' so light meter discharge battery after couple of hours.
One thing I am not sure about is who put this setting since I don't remember I did it.
Other thing is that why this setting doesn't reset with "reset to factory defaults".

Anyway, I was so distressed that and overlooked that camera isn't going to standby although nickt asked me if camera's viewfinder display turns off.

Thank you all for assistance. ;)
Click to expand...
 
N

nickt

Senior Member
That thread was here:
http://nikonites.com/d7100/26823-nikon-d7100-heating-draining-battery.html#axzz3Kqm56Zwj

The guy was leaving his camera ON, but not using it. Turned out he had the standby timer set to no limit so the meter was staying on full time with the camera switched on. There is a similar setting on the d610. That could add to your drain if meter is staying on between shots. Also, we tend to play with a new camera more. How about live view, are you using a lot of that? Like Pretzel said, there is not a significant break in period. If it stays bad, get it looked at.
 
Mister Bumbles

Mister Bumbles

Senior Member
hark said:
I found the thread. It has to do with a custom setting for the metering. You may need to read some of the initial posts to get a gist, but if you haven't changed the setting, then something else is faulty.

http://nikonites.com/d7100/26823-nikon-d7100-heating-draining-battery-3.html#post384253

Here is the post by the OP (Original Poster) who states the cause of the battery draining:
Click to expand...

nickt said:
That thread was here:
http://nikonites.com/d7100/26823-nikon-d7100-heating-draining-battery.html#axzz3Kqm56Zwj

The guy was leaving his camera ON, but not using it. Turned out he had the standby timer set to no limit so the meter was staying on full time with the camera switched on. There is a similar setting on the d610. That could add to your drain if meter is staying on between shots. Also, we tend to play with a new camera more. How about live view, are you using a lot of that? Like Pretzel said, there is not a significant break in period. If it stays bad, get it looked at.
Click to expand...

My standby is set to only 6 seconds. So that shouldn't be the issue. :) And thank you for replying so quickly folks!
 
Woodyg3

Woodyg3

Senior Member
Contributor
Mister Bumbles said:
Now, another thing, I'm not sure if this is normal or if it matters. Since I've not had a digital Nikon, it could be normal. But, the LCD on top (control panel) *always* shows my estimated shots remaining and which memory card slot is selected. Is that ALWAYS supposed to be on, even when the camera is turned off?
Click to expand...

Yes, that always shows. That display uses such a tiny amount of power that it makes no practical difference at all.

I would try a differentr battery before even worrying about any other options. If the same thing happens, it's in camera. If not, it's likely a bad battery.

Good luck. I hope it's the battery, that's the easiest fix! :)
 
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