Dave Hartley

During my recent travels, I’ve been keeping a log of camera battery usage. I did this to get a better feeling on how the camera and battery combinations were working so that in the future I would have a good idea on how many batteries I would need out in the field.

The first major workout for my D3 was our trip to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the Antarctic peninsula. This was a twenty five day cruise in the Southern Ocean. I used the Nikon EN-EL4a rechargeable Li-ion battery exclusively taking a total of three on the voyage. The usage statistics for this trip are shown below (14-bit RAW capture with loss less compression). The lenses used and the approximate percentage of use were the 17-35/2.8 (~15%), 28-80/2.8 (~10%), 70-200/2.8 (~15%) and 200-400/4 (~60%). The 70-200 and 200-400 lenses have VR and this was enabled.  Weather conditions on the Falklands are similar to England (rain, wind, sleet, sun, all in about 60 minutes!). South Georgia is colder, with temperatures from just below freezing to about 5C (windchill can lower this considerably if you get Katabatic winds). The Antarctic peninsula was about the same as South Georgia. During the trip, I never had to change a battery whilst out shooting.

D3 Battery Usage for the Falkland Islands, South Georgia & Antarctica 2008

Compare these numbers with a trip to Antarctica and the Falkland Islands that we did in late November/ early December the previous year. This was early in the season and hence we had colder weather whilst in Antarctica. I was also shooting with the D2x as the D3 became available whilst we were away. The lenses used were almost identical to those mentioned before with the 12-24/4 being used instead of the 17-35/2.8. Both EN-EL4a and the lower capacity EN-EL4 were used; capture was 12-bit uncompressed RAW.

D2x Battery Usage for Antarctica and the Falkland Islands 2007

Notice that the average number of pictures increased with the D3 compared with the D2x. You can also see the higher capacity EN-EL4a performing much better than the EN-EL4.

Finally, some statistics for the D3 in hot climates. The D3 with the EN-EL4a was used for a trip to Belize for the last two weeks of May 2008. The first week was spent in the jungle whilst the second week was spent offshore on the two of the Cayes. Temperature was very hot, around 38C (100F) with humidity through the roof in the jungle; on one of the Cayes, we were photographing Red footed Boobies on a platform, in absolutely scorching sun, so temperature was around the same but humidity was lower. The same lenses were used (17-35, 28-70, 70-200, 200-400) with the 200-400 being used for about 90% of the images. All images 14-bit RAW capture with loss less compression.

D3 Battery Usage for Belize

The middle battery numbers included using the live-view feature in tripod mode; this tends to use up more batteries due to the use of the rear LCD. Normally I would expect the battery performance to be better in warmer conditions, but the numbers are slightly distorted due to the more intensive use of the 200-400 (with VR) and also the live view mode.

On our recent January trip to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island and the Antarctic Peninsula, I was able to give the Nikon D3 a good shakeout, with my trusty D2x as a backup. I was looking forward to seeing how the image quality was at higher ISO’s. This is important when traveling to places such as the Falkland Islands and South Georgia as the weather is typically overcast, resulting in plummeting shutter speeds; not so good for shooting wildlife. The camera did not disappoint; in fact it was stunning. Take a look at the table which shows the ISO speed and the number of photos that were taken (actually the number of images I still have on my disk). Most images were shot at ISO 800, with the next two ranges being ISO 500 and 640. I only have 135 images with the ISO at it’s base value of 200. The image quality was so good that I was treating ISO 800 as a starting point. You will see that I shot a few images at ISO 100 (LO 1); I was trying to get the slowest shutter to blur a glacial stream which had a King penguin standing on a rock.

Compare this to an identical trip that we took in February 2006. In this case, the Nikon D2x was my main camera. The following table shows the ISO speed and associated number of pictures that are sitting on a backup portion of one of my drives. Notice that most of the images where shot at ISO 200. Only a small number of pictures where taken at ISO 800. Was the weather better? Good light? Not really, pretty much the same. What the D3 allowed me to do was to utilize faster shutter speeds and/or add more depth of field. This is a huge benefit to wildlife photographers! Animals are always moving around and the light is not always optimal, so being able to utilize higher ISO is a huge gain!

Considering these statistics, if my D3 was my main camera and my D2x was my backup, how many pictures did you think I took on the trip with my D2x? Less than twenty and I only kept three! I’ll discuss that more in another post.