2 Battery Question (Technical)

[jbylake]

I've got a new Nikon D610, the manufacturers manual, and the book Mastering the Nikon 610, and cannot for the life of me, given a zillion googles, understand how these two things operate.

I bought the MBD14 grip, have a Nikon brand LiOn battery in the camera and bought another for the grip.

Where I'm confused is, do both batteries run in tandem? In other words, when I go to the battery health menu, am I seeing the health of one battery or two? If it shows a low battery, does that mean one or both are weak and need charging? If it makes any difference, both batteries are genuine Nikon EN-EL 5 batteries, which are supposed to contain a circuit that shows battery life and health.

Thanks ahead for your input.

J.

 

[Mr.Photo]

The batteries don't run together, but seperately. The camera has a setting in the menu where you can select which battery you want to be used first. I have mine set to use the battery in the grip first and keep the one in the camera body itself as a backup as it's move of a process to change that one as you have to remove the grip to do so.

 

[jbylake]

Which battery does your camera show as first second second battery? I'm sorry for my stupidity, but I'm confused. Thanks,

Jim

 

[Mr.Photo]

Which battery does your camera show as first second second battery? I'm sorry for my stupidity, but I'm confused. Thanks,

Jim

You can set which battery you want the camera to use first. When the first battery runs out the camera automatically switches over to the second battery.

As I mentioned above, I have my D7000 set up to use the battery installed in the battery grip first as I seldom shoot enough to warrant going to the second battery installed in the camera body. This makes battery changes easier as it's much easier to remove the battery in the grip than it is to remove the battery grip to get to the battery in the camera itself.

 

[jbylake]

You mentioned that I could decide which battery I can use first. Could you please tell me how to do that?
Thanks,

J.

 

[jbylake]

Sorry, your answer came before I asked the second question. Thanks.

J.

 

[Mr.Photo]

On my D7000 it is in the "Custom Setting Menu", item d14 "Battery Order".

 

[astroNikon]

As mentioned above
on my d600 it's in the Custom Menu, d13 Battery Order
options of:
- MB-D14 Use MB-D14 batteries First (this is what I use)
- D600 Use camera battery first

I normally use the Grip battery first. Since I'm not a Pro I tend to use some of the grip battery and use the camera battery as backup. I rarely use the battery in the body. I'll recharge the grips battery from time to time as it's easy to. The camera body requires you to take the grip off to get to it. So it makes sense to use the grip battery first.

I did the same thing on my d7000.

If you do not configure this I believe it defaults to the camera body first
If you press the INFO button, you can see icons of the 2 batteries and which is being used in the middle far right (at least on the d600).

Once in a while the grip battery will jiggle loose as the cartridge thing isn't the best design in the world if you put your camera on the ground alot (which I do for soccer when I'm resting). In the INFO screen I've noticed this as the "EL15" grip battery icon isn't there, so I'll pull out the tray and reseat it.