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This is the first annoyance I feel in using Nikon D200 camera. This modern battery has a kind of data communication link with the body to feed the power information display on both its LCD and viewfinder. Unfortunately just as most humans, brain size tends to be the opposite of muscle size. Well, right, it is not about battery. It is also about the power consumption of the camera.

I used to use a tiny D40x with either 18-55mm AF-S kit or old MF lenses and has never ever ran out of battery. I do not know how many shots I could take for every charge as I have never even felt in need to check it. The battery last for at least a week with my usage style. When I got home an found the display only showing one bar battery indicator, I will charge it. But if I had no chance to do it, I would still feel save as I knew that it would still giving me power for about a day or two. Holding D200 with AF 80-200mm f/2.8D attached, full charge only give me a day, about 400 shots, no flash - means not even one single shot was taken with built in flash turned on. Usage of lighter lens AF 50mm f1.4 gave me more, but only a bit … a small bit.

Last weekend I took a few low-light shots at night with external flash, took about a hundred or so hots in the morning about a half taken with the built in flash, and ran out of battery just after the lunch time after taking about another hundred of no-flash shots. For the remaining day I could only drive along and gazed seeing my spouse’s excitement in taking amazing landscape of rice field and the mountain against the bright blue sky. What a bad day.

I started to think that there is something wrong with the camera. But after consulting with a few seniors and about a couple of hours Googling I conclude that it is normal for a D200. Those moved to D300 reported a slightly better consumption but not by far.

It is what Ken Rockwell had to say about D200 battery consumption:

Battery life is worse than my D70, contrary to specifications. I only get about 600 shots per charge. This is from the huge LCD screen sucking far more battery power than the D70’s little screen. This is what I get pretty regularly the way I shoot. When running buffer burst tests, making dozens of shots in a row on motor drive at 5 FPS without looking at them much I got 1,200 shots on a charge.

I never worried about my battery with my D70. It ran for days or weeks and the biggest problem was me getting so lackadaisical that I’d forget to charge it before a shoot. Good news is the D70 gets such great battery life that even then I was fine!

I do need to remember to charge the D200 each night. I never did for my D70. Unlike the D70, I do see the battery running down as I use it and it’s not just because of the D200’s more precise battery meter.

Because the battery of my D200 lasts about 99% as long as a day of shooting I bought a spare EN-EL3e battery. Both Adorama and Amazon are using the photo of the older black EN-EL3 battery. The new EN-EL3e is gray.

The big LCD uses a lot of power. On my first charge I only got 250 shots because I was playing with the menus all day. Today I regularly get 500 shots when I get the low battery warning, and at 600 shots it dies. As an experiment to check if it was the LCD or whatever I decided to see how many shots I could motor off after the Low warning before I recharged. My battery was at 15% and gave me the low warning after 600 shots. I usually look at the LCD after every few shots. I turned off the auto preview I always used on my D70 to save power. With the LCD off I held down the shutter at 5FPS repeatedly to see how many more shots I could get on my last 15% of battery. I ran it up to 1,200 shots, or just as many shots on the last 15% of battery with no LCD as I did with the LCD on the first 85% of charge! Of course this also could have been from the VR of my 18 - 200 VR; however my other VR lenses haven’t used more battery than other lenses. I’ll have to look into this, too.

The new high-tech EN-EL3e battery is gray to distinguish it from the incompatible but similar earlier batteries, which are black. Not only is it gray, but it has three, not two, metal contacts. The new contact is for data.

The brilliant MS-D70 throw-away CR2 battery holder doesn’t work in the D200. It’s also keyed so it can’t slide all the way into the D200.

I tried jamming my D70 battery into my D200. It won’t go because of keyed slots. If you carve it with a Dremel tool it will fit, but won’t work because there is no electronic communication. The D200 will think it’s dead, even if full.

The D200 battery works great in my D70 and D50.

So … I had no other choice than ordering a spare battery. which is quite a challenge as well.

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