Z7 Power

The Z7 is my first digital Nikon. I had an extensive list of Canon bodies, starting with the very first DSLR. Also Leica, Fuji and Olympus.

Certainly with my Canons, and I believe my other bodies, I never turned them off except when charging batteries. They just time out and go to sleep.

With Canon, if you set the camera down with 50% battery, come back a month later and touch the shutter, it wakes up and you still have approx 50% power.

With my Z7, it will go from a full charge to flat in two days.

Is this the way it is with Nikons? I recall being on a shoot with a well known Nikon shooter that shut off his camera after every shot. I asked him about it... "don't want to waste battery..."

I can get used to it, but kind of a pain?

My Z7 arrives tomorrow, so I can't yet answer the battery question specific to that particular Nikon. With my Nikon DSLRs (I've had 3), I've had very little battery drain when I just leave them in the "ON" position, but I'm expecting that I will see more drain (and thus, will need to more frequently shut the camera off) with the Z7. It will probably be hard to get into that habit, but I'm sure it will come eventually.

To understand what was "normal", you'd have to do a pretty thorough job at describing how you were using the camera during those two days. How many shots did you record? How many minutes/hours was the EVF activated? How many minutes/hours was the main screen activated (either in Live View or in reviewing photos)? Were you ever using WiFi? Were you using continuous focus a lot (like tracking subjects a lot more taking a shot)?

Nikon dSLRs are very, very good with power management. I could typically go on a 3-4 day vacation with one battery charge while taking 500-1000 photos and occasionally reviewing photos on the rear LCD and have plenty of battery left.

But, all mirrorless cameras (including Nikons) use more power that a dSLR. In a dSLR, the act of looking through the viewfinder uses no power at all (it's a purely optical viewfinder). In a mirrorless camera, the act of looking at the EVF or the main screen uses substantial power because it has to essentially power a video stream from the sensor to whichever screen you're looking at (EVF or main rear screen). So, your battery usage in a mirrorless camera has more to do with how many minutes you have the EVF or rear screen activated and viewing live images on whereas the dSLR has more to do with just how many pictures you take. The EVF is presumably more power efficient than the rear screen (since it's a smaller screen and can also be less bright).

Other things that tend to use a lot of power on Nikon cameras are engaging WiFi and transferring images over it.

Nikon cameras are typically pretty good about timing out in a fairly short time and going into a low power "idle" mode that allows them to save power if you aren't actively using them, but haven't switched them off.

jfriend00 said:

To understand what was "normal", you'd have to do a pretty thorough job at describing how you were using the camera during those two days. How many shots did you record? How many minutes/hours was the EVF activated? How many minutes/hours was the main screen activated (either in Live View or in reviewing photos)? Were you ever using WiFi? Were you using continuous focus a lot (like tracking subjects a lot more taking a shot)?

Click to expand...

I guess I did a poor job of explaining. I wasn't using the camera at all, it was sitting on my desk. When I set it down, I *think* I had about 80%. Two days later it was flat.

Guess I'll have to do a more scientific version.

Or maybe there's a setting I need, but looking through the entire manual and menus last night I didn't see anything that caught my eye.

JustBob said:

jfriend00 said:

To understand what was "normal", you'd have to do a pretty thorough job at describing how you were using the camera during those two days. How many shots did you record? How many minutes/hours was the EVF activated? How many minutes/hours was the main screen activated (either in Live View or in reviewing photos)? Were you ever using WiFi? Were you using continuous focus a lot (like tracking subjects a lot more taking a shot)?

Click to expand...

I guess I did a poor job of explaining. I wasn't using the camera at all, it was sitting on my desk. When I set it down, I *think* I had about 80%. Two days later it was flat.

Guess I'll have to do a more scientific version.

Or maybe there's a setting I need, but looking through the entire manual and menus last night I didn't see anything that caught my eye.

Click to expand...

That does not sound normal at all unless you perhaps had WiFi connected or some other peripheral connected that was not well power managed.

--
John

Menu item C3 allows you to set the power off delay for Playback, Menus, Image review, and Standby timer. You can set things do the camera powers down when not being used.

JustBob said:

jfriend00 said:

To understand what was "normal", you'd have to do a pretty thorough job at describing how you were using the camera during those two days. How many shots did you record? How many minutes/hours was the EVF activated? How many minutes/hours was the main screen activated (either in Live View or in reviewing photos)? Were you ever using WiFi? Were you using continuous focus a lot (like tracking subjects a lot more taking a shot)?

Click to expand...

I guess I did a poor job of explaining. I wasn't using the camera at all, it was sitting on my desk. When I set it down, I *think* I had about 80%. Two days later it was flat.

Guess I'll have to do a more scientific version.

Or maybe there's a setting I need, but looking through the entire manual and menus last night I didn't see anything that caught my eye.

Click to expand...

I’m not new to Nikon and have never seen the battery level drop when not being used like this Z7 has. Mine has dropped from 50% to 44%, I think those were the numbers, in a week of no use. My D850 could be left for months and only drop 1% or 2%, or a similar small amount. It’s weird.

Also, last night I installed Snap Bridge. The only reason was to try get to GPS coordinates into my images. Now when I turn the camera off I see a ! dialog with:

Wireless transmission will
continue. To suspend
transmission, select "off" for
"Send while off"

Searching the pdf manual for "send" and "transmission" yields no such setting or wording. There is a "select to send" in the i menu.

I also looked at the Snap Bridge app and do not see any such reference.

Anyone got a clue?

Nikons contain an internal battery that has to be charged from the main battery. For the Z it seemed to take two regular battery charges to complete. Once that is done I expect that your experience will change. I don't know by how much, since I always turn my cameras off.

JustBob said:

Wireless transmission will
continue. To suspend
transmission, select "off" for
"Send while off"

Searching the pdf manual for "send" and "transmission" yields no such setting or wording. There is a "select to send" in the i menu.

I also looked at the Snap Bridge app and do not see any such reference.

Anyone got a clue?

Click to expand...

Setup menu, Connect to Smart Device, Send While Off -- either on or off.

JustBob said:

Also, last night I installed Snap Bridge. The only reason was to try get to GPS coordinates into my images. Now when I turn the camera off I see a ! dialog with:

Wireless transmission will
continue. To suspend
transmission, select "off" for
"Send while off"

Searching the pdf manual for "send" and "transmission" yields no such setting or wording. There is a "select to send" in the i menu.

I also looked at the Snap Bridge app and do not see any such reference.

Anyone got a clue?

Click to expand...

Turn on airplane mode. It will disable bluetooth and wifi together. Keep the camera in airplane mode until you need to use wireless transfers or GPS.

JustBob said:

The Z7 is my first digital Nikon. I had an extensive list of Canon bodies, starting with the very first DSLR. Also Leica, Fuji and Olympus.

Certainly with my Canons, and I believe my other bodies, I never turned them off except when charging batteries. They just time out and go to sleep.

With Canon, if you set the camera down with 50% battery, come back a month later and touch the shutter, it wakes up and you still have approx 50% power.

With my Z7, it will go from a full charge to flat in two days.

Is this the way it is with Nikons? I recall being on a shoot with a well known Nikon shooter that shut off his camera after every shot. I asked him about it... "don't want to waste battery..."

I can get used to it, but kind of a pain?

Click to expand...

No it's not the way with Nikons. My DSLRs can go for months without being charged. I've accidentally left them on for a couple of weeks and they don't run down.

When I'm away on a shooting holiday though, it's different. Why? Because at the end of each day I can't resist going back over the images and reviewing them, maybe several times. That makes a huge difference. Don't do that and I can get 1200 shots or more on a charge. Do that and it can drop as low as 200. However, as regards the actual shooting I'll often leave the camera on all day, to no ill effect.

Your well known Nikon shooter will gain absolutely nothing by turning his camera off for each shot. If it's a DSLR.

But my Panny G1 is much more liable to run down if left on.

Droster said:

Turn on airplane mode. It will disable bluetooth and wifi together. Keep the camera in airplane mode until you need to use wireless transfers or GPS.

Click to expand...

good idea.

NCB said:

No it's not the way with Nikons. My DSLRs can go for months without being charged. I've accidentally left them on for a couple of weeks and they don't run down.

Click to expand...

All righty then. I will do a full charge, turn it off and let it be idle for a couple of days and see what happens.

JustBob said:

The Z7 is my first digital Nikon. I had an extensive list of Canon bodies, starting with the very first DSLR. Also Leica, Fuji and Olympus.

Certainly with my Canons, and I believe my other bodies, I never turned them off except when charging batteries. They just time out and go to sleep.

With Canon, if you set the camera down with 50% battery, come back a month later and touch the shutter, it wakes up and you still have approx 50% power.

With my Z7, it will go from a full charge to flat in two days.

Is this the way it is with Nikons? I recall being on a shoot with a well known Nikon shooter that shut off his camera after every shot. I asked him about it... "don't want to waste battery..."

I can get used to it, but kind of a pain?

Click to expand...

I regularly turn off my DSLRs and MILC when I do not use them, store them in the bag or change lenses. The on/off switch is IMO more conveniently placed on Nikon than on Canon, i.e., when you grab your camera, your right hand is automatically on the on/off switch.

So, yeah, I do not feel it's a pain.

JustBob said:

The Z7 is my first digital Nikon. I had an extensive list of Canon bodies, starting with the very first DSLR. Also Leica, Fuji and Olympus.

Certainly with my Canons, and I believe my other bodies, I never turned them off except when charging batteries. They just time out and go to sleep.

With Canon, if you set the camera down with 50% battery, come back a month later and touch the shutter, it wakes up and you still have approx 50% power.

With my Z7, it will go from a full charge to flat in two days.

Is this the way it is with Nikons?

Click to expand...

Not with the 5 Nikon DLSRs I have extensively used.

JustBob said:

I recall being on a shoot with a well known Nikon shooter that shut off his camera after every shot. I asked him about it... "don't want to waste battery..."

Click to expand...

Without knowing how low the battery indicator was at that exact time, or how much more shooting was required that day it's impossible to determine if that was either wise or an affectation.

JustBob said:

I can get used to it, but kind of a pain?

Click to expand...

Almost never touching the power switch seems a bit arbitrary, and also completely self-originated.

Nikon instructs that the power should be off when changing lenses or cards. It's probably a good practice with any camera. I reflexively turn off the power when putting the camera into the bag, and I reflexively turn it on when picking the camera up. It causes no delay and is fully automatic to me by now. The camera is ready to shoot before it gets up to my eye; Canon DSLRs are probably like that too.

I never give it a thought. It helps I suppose that the power switch location is perfectly positioned.

I read somewhere that the difference in power consumption between idle and off states is minimal for my D800, it is probably the same for other Nikon DSLRs. The off state is really a powered state to allow for fast switching on.

My Z7 stays off most of the time but with background transfer of jpegs to my smartphone. With some minor use per day on top of this the battery lasts a good week.

Comparison point:

After 3 days of leaving the power switched on with my D810 the battery bar graph hasn't nudged a bit.

If the Z7 draws down more quickly, that's the sort of thing that sometimes gets corrected with a firmware fix.

--
Render unto Digital, that which is Digital's,
and unto Analog, that which is Analog's

A possible cause of some initial battery drain is new cameras, including the Z7, come with an internal clock that draws power from the battery until it is fully charged.

Three or four days ago I charged the battery to 100%. I just put the camera on my desk, with the power switch in the ON position. A couple of times per day I half press the shutter to wake it up. Then I'll check the level. Until today it was 100%. Today it is 98%, probably within the tolerance of its measurement.

So who knows? The clock charge as mentioned above? Break in the space/time continuum?

Doesn't really matter, I'm just glad it's not a real issue.

Thanks all!