Comments on: Charging Nikon D40 battery – how often?

By: jude

jude — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:13:59 +0000

LEM's answer was terrifically thorough — the D40 battery can be recharged at any time with no capacity penalty.

You can also do some things to reduce the battery drawdown between charges such as turn off the automatic LCD display after taking a pic, turning off noise reduction, ratcheting down the brightness of the LCD display, etc.
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By: LEM

LEM — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:44:59 +0000

Your camera has Li-Ion battery. While not cheap it's a nice battery that has these key properties:

- Low weight
- No memory effect
- Very slow self-discharge rate.
- Amazing battery life

What this means to you?
Since it has no memory, it can be charged at your pleasure. You don't have to wait for it to drain. It is advisable to fully drain it every now and then, but again, not necessarily every single time. You don't want to be caught with nearly empty battery when the great photo opportunity arises.

Low self discharge means if you're not shooting anything for a while – you will probably not have to worry about the battery losing the charge. Just charge it fully and keep it in a camera on stand-by!

If you come from a camera with AAA rechargeables – you'll probably be amazed how much better the battery life of your D40 is. It is probably going to be good for at least 400 shots on one charge with battery fully rechargable in about 90 minutes. So unless you are doing A LOT of shooting in the same day and have no spare time to recharge, you may even do well with just one battery.

I was going to buy an extra battery for my D80, when I was researching it, but when I saw how amazing the battery life it has, I just quit and bought a few filters instead! Note, that D80 has a better battery life than D40, but I think D40 is still a great battery preserver, so try and shoot with it for a while, and then decide if you want to invest your $$$ into this!

It also matters a great deal how you shoot. For example, I never use onboard flash (have external unit), so I usually recharge my D80 battery after about 300-400 shots, and it has never been under 50% as per camera indicator! Your mileage may vary depending on how you shoot, plus again – D80 has better battery life than D40….

By the way, if you do decide to buy – only buy from reputable dealers and only genuine Nikon battery. Stay away from the "compatible" ones. This is a very high power battery, and the original includes some safeguards against short-circuiting that may result in a fire or explosion that the $14.99 knockoffs don't. Don't gamble with your camera and your health for that matter!

LEM.
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By: fhotoace

fhotoace — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:55:59 +0000

Those Li-ion batteries can last for a long time. I still am using the ones in my over five year old Nikon D100 and they are still working like new.

The D40 should be able to get 300 to 350 shots per charge. The night before you plan on shooting, just put the battery in the charger and charge it overnight.

I have heard that Li-ion batteries can be recharged about 400 times before it needs replacing.

I have over 180,000 shutter cycles on my D100 and the batteries (I have two) are still working just fine.
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proFotog

By: NT

NT — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:31:59 +0000

to get the best out of battery life you need to let the battery fully die before recharging it. i have done my research and i have had the same kind of betteries for years because of this...hope that helps
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