D300 Exhausted Battery Syndrome.

On the day the problem occured, the temperature outside was around 80F (26C) and low humidity - The event was outdoors.

If the hunidity/temperature was an issue than my D40 handled it a whole lot better - no problems at all :> ).

I have had my D300 since January 2008 and have made almost 4000 images with it. During that time, I have used two Nikon VR lenses extensively (80-400mm VR and 105mm VR), as well as a number of other Nikon lenses, with absolutely no problems at all.

--
Bill McClung (a.k.a. 'NC BILL')
Image galleries at http://www.pbase.com/nc_bill

'Every other artist begins with a blank canvas, a piece of paper.....the photographer begins with the finished product.' --- Edward Steichen

amatorb4 said:

If the humidity/temperature was an issue than my D40 handled it a
whole lot better - no problems at all :> ).

Click to expand...

If poor electric contacts were the issue it does not necessarily affect all equipment the same.

My 1.7x stored in different conditions to the 1.4 x failed and needed several contact cleans - the 1.4x( used much of the time) kept going.

--
Leonard Shepherd

Practicing and thinking can do more for good photography than buying or consuming.

Why would I have had this issue on 5 D300 bodies, yet I've never experienced it over the years, shooting the exact same conditions with a D70, 70s, D2H (x2), D2Hs, D2X (x2) and D2Xs(x2)?

I didn't shoot a D200 and if this was prevalent with that body as well then the owners were / are nuts for not calling Nikon to task for a resolution.

I shoot in the humidity of the summer and the below 32 degrees of winter constantly.

Makes no sense to me other than that there is a problem.
--
Jim Fenton
My Wildlife Images at:
http://www.pbase.com/soonipi1957

Same thing happened to me.

I was shooting a wedding in Scottsdale a few weeks ago, shooting with a brand new D300 and the Nikkor 70-200mm VR. Battery was freshly charged.

After 20 or so shots, the camera indicated an exhausted battery. Flipped in the freshly charged spare, same thing: after a few shots, exhausted battery indicated. Turning the D300 off and then on gave me the full battery indication, but only for a few more shots. Then it was back to indicating the exhausted battery again.

I had a second D300 with a 20mm prime mounted. That camera/lens combo made it through the entire day, start to finish, without a hitch.

Jim,

Might this be related to the more miserly battery drain of the D300. Could be that it is more sensitive to power fluctuation especially with VR lenses drawing power. The D200 was not miserly at all but the D300 does last a long time. Grabbing at straws here as I know you've been through many bodies. Myself a new pcb was installed in my 70-200 so maybe they are attempting mods to VR lenses on an as needed basis to see if a power draw fix might solve the issue. Hard to know but they may be doing a rolling mod to lenses which might get into lens production if shown to solve the issue.

Who knows.....just a thought.

John

amatorb4 said:

What puzzles me about the problem is why restarting camera would
bring battery life back?

Click to expand...

Good question.
Your logic seems to be true.
First time I see someone thinking this way.

I could not answer "poor contacts" on your question.
I will add: Does restarting camera make the contacts better? (for awhile).

amatorb4 said:

I would assume that it is not a poor
contacts with battery, but some sort of power board failure. I
certainly will bring it back to this forum when I get the camera back.

Click to expand...

And you have the right decision here.
Push Nikon to find a solution.

amatorb4 said:

I did a little web search and came upon these posts on photo.net:
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Kl7m
Nikon didn't make a true statement, obviously problem occurred with
D200, I also found some posts about D80.

Click to expand...

Reading your link, I can't believe this problem goes back to 2006. They called it DBS

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=20892329

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=22362092

Some people got new replacement instead of repair.

What's going on.....

Petruska said:

another 70-200mm for the list.....

Sure looks like the weight of that large lens, lightly oxidized D300
contacts

Click to expand...

These are metals, not open reactive chemical substances.
No oxidation between metals.

But maybe long lens creates heavy "electrical current" that induces more "heat".

Sounds like reliability and torture test failure.

Petruska said:

and maybe even a maginally designed D300 lens mount
contributing to the problem. Next time that this happens raise the
front of the lens upward sightly while holding the D300 stationary as
to place some force on the D300 to lens contacts and see if the
battery problem goes away.

I don't think that I have ever read on this site where a low weight
lens gave the depleted battery warning.

Click to expand...

corlissnc said:

I'd have to bet that Nikon designed the spring contacts on the 70-200
to have enough travel in them to continue exerting enough pressure on
the corresponding contact pads in the body even in cases where a user
failed to support the lens --- besides, if you want to talk about big
lenses exerting enough pressure in what you call a poorly designed
mount to cause the problem would a Sigma Bigma qualify? I own the 70

• 200 as well, but the Bigma is a true monster and I have the HSM

version that relies on all those contacts and I have no problem - not
even when it is fully extended AND unsupported. I've observed the
mount area to see if the Bigma when fully extended and unsupported
caused any drooping --- I was only able to see that there was a very
slight amount of drooping --- just about imperceptible actually.

So, IMO if there is some sort of correlation to this problem where
the 70 - 200 is part of the problem, I do not believe that it has
anything at all to do with the fact that it happens to be a
moderately large and heavy lens that is somehow causing a problem
because the lens mount might be improperly designed. This phenomenon
has a different cause -- possibly related to the 70 - 200 but not due
to it's being large and heavy.

Click to expand...

Good point there.

Maybe 70-200 or "Nikon long lens" creates internal heat in the body chip.

It's more toward "electrical loads" rather than the "weight loads".

edit n.b.:

specific 70-200mm also creates problem for night long exposure shot, it creates the amp glow.
(similar to heat builds up inside the body chip)

johnrg said:

Jim,

Might this be related to the more miserly battery drain of the D300.
Could be that it is more sensitive to power fluctuation especially
with VR lenses drawing power. The D200 was not miserly at all but the
D300 does last a long time. Grabbing at straws here as I know you've
been through many bodies. Myself a new pcb was installed in my 70-200
so maybe they are attempting mods to VR lenses on an as needed basis
to see if a power draw fix might solve the issue. Hard to know but
they may be doing a rolling mod to lenses which might get into lens
production if shown to solve the issue.

Who knows.....just a thought.

John

Click to expand...

The false low battery occurs with D80, D200 and D300 ONLY because they share the same dumb 'feature', that badly designed battery gauge.

They also share something else, 2 things.

1./ small contact with weak spring to battery 'S' terminal

2./ too much of what appears to be black grease applied to body lens contacts on some D80, D200 and D300 bodies.

This is NOT rocket science, there is no mystery going on.

Solution

1./ Polish the 'S' terminal on the battery and wipe clean that excess black gunk from the lens contacts on affected bodies as well as wipe clean ALL lens contacts that have been mated to affected bodies - this works, no need for fancy checmicals or sending bodies to Nikon.

2. Nikon release a firmware upgrade for D80, D200 and D300 which doesn't rely on ONE single bad reading instead averages readings and ONLY reacts when there is a continuing negative trend. At present the dumb feature only checks the battery once every 8 seconds and if one single reading is low or communications with the battery is lost it panics and prevents you from using the camera for 8 seconds or until it again sees a good reading.

I am surprised people on this forum continue to treat this simple dumb problem as some mysterious issue.

--
Inspector Kluso

MattMac112 said:

Same thing happened to me.

I was shooting a wedding in Scottsdale a few weeks ago, shooting with
a brand new D300 and the Nikkor 70-200mm VR. Battery was freshly
charged.

After 20 or so shots, the camera indicated an exhausted battery.
Flipped in the freshly charged spare, same thing: after a few shots,
exhausted battery indicated. Turning the D300 off and then on gave me
the full battery indication, but only for a few more shots. Then it
was back to indicating the exhausted battery again.

Click to expand...

Looks like the chip was still HOT when you did all of those. Hence it kept going back to EBS.

I suspect long lens creates internal heat in the internal circuit.

(in addition to the heat effect, it creates Amp Glow in long exposure)

MattMac112 said:

I had a second D300 with a 20mm prime mounted. That camera/lens combo
made it through the entire day, start to finish, without a hitch.

Click to expand...

The other camera's chip was stay cool.

Thanks for your insight Inspctor.

I commented on the middle connector weeks ago. I also have had my camera and lens gone over at Niokn and have done my own cleaning. My lens received a new pcb.

That said... this is a discussion forum. Until Nikon publically introduces the issue/solution, this will be "discussed".

John

I've seen a few posts looking at environmental factors...the first time my D300 exhibited these false battery alerts chronically, I was shooting the AZ Ironman in 95degF full sun. They'd happen probably once every 30 sec, I had to constantly turn off/on. Then I did the 100% DeoxIT cleaning thing (Tempe Fryes Electronics). Next, went to the Phoenix Zoo and shot again in 95degF full sun. 300 shots and no false battery alerts. Both were w/ the D300+200-400 VR. We'll see if this good trend continues, but at least in my case, I don't think it has to do with my setup being exposed to 'relatively' hot temperatures.
--
D300 :: D70
Nikkor 200-400 f/4 AF-S VR ED
Nikkor 300 f/2.8 AF-S VR ED N
Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 AF-S VR ED
Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8 AF-S ED N

Well, I have the problem with the 200-400 and no TC attached...
Also occured with my 70-200 and TC17E II.

Camera shuts down and gives the low battery blinking warning. Turn off camera and turn on and works fine for a while then actus up again...

When I traded up from D80 to D300 I had a pile of spare batteries, some Nikon, some greys off Ebay, all worked fine with D80.

Problem: I used the same batteries with D300 and immediately got the low battery & DBS on 3 of the 5 batteries (including 1x genuine Nikon). I’ve tried the camera reset, freezing the battery (Nikons suggestion), that anti-oxy stuff (frickin expensive), changing lenses. Every suggestrion you guys have ever posted- none of it made any difference.

Solution: I bought 3x batteries off Ebay rated at 1700mha (look up Orphanbiker) and all three worked and continue to work- no problems since (3 months now). Old batteries now in the bin.

Conclusion: D300 is very sensitive to battery voltage\ current- try those higher rated batteries.

--

every time they invent a new fool-proof system, someone gives birth to a better fool

Camera was classified with status - B2 -> Moderate Repair : Major Parts Replaced.

So... what parts were replaced?

May as well add to this very long section. I had my 1st low battery flash (would't take a picture) w/ my new 80-400 after maybe the 5th day of use. Turned off the camera, then back on to a full charge battery. So Im not alone here am I. Again for me, only w/ the 80-400 mm. Only on 1 D300 so far.
Ron B
2 D300's

Don't know yet, the only thing posted is status. I hope to get some more info when the work is finished.

Arretose said:

So... what parts were replaced?

Click to expand...