Digital SLR Batteries

Gas For Your Camera

You've got a camera - now you need some digital SLR batteries to power the thing.

I have to admit it - there really aren't a ton of options here: the camera that you have will determine the batteries that you use.

Some cameras only use a proprietary rechargeable battery while others give you the flexibility of using standard AAs.

Digital SLR Accesories

Batteries Memory Cards Camera Bags Filters Tripods External Flash

Regardless of which digital SLR batteries you need, getting a spare is highly recommended.

Not sure what battery your camera uses? Jump straight to the battery table.

Film vs. Digital SLR Batteries

With a film SLR, you could go for about 2 to 5 years without changing the battery.

Film SLRs use tiny pancake batteries that only cost a few dollars to replace.

By way of comparison, your digital SLR battery will only last anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks (depending on how much you use it).

These batteries are not cheap: a typical rechargeable battery costs between $30 and $50. So what's going on here? Why are digital SLR cameras such battery hogs?

How Digital SLRs Use Batteries

Your digital SLR camera does a lot more work than a film SLR every time you take a picture.

First, the camera has to open and close the shutter and expose the sensor to light.

The sensor's light detectors gather light and color information, run that through the camera's processor and turn it into a file that can be saved. The image is then saved to the memory card.

While all this is going on, the camera is also displaying the image on its LCD screen.

All of this computer processing and information display takes a lot of power.

Here's good news: digital SLR batteries today last much longer than they used to.

Unless you are a very aggressive photographer, you probably won't need to recharge the battery for at least a week.

Types of Digital SLR Batteries

The camera that you choose determines the batteries that you can use.

For example, the Canon digital SLR cameras all use a special Canon rechargeable battery (the most common is the BP-511A).

By way of comparison, the Pentax line of cameras run on 4 standard AA batteries.

Regardless of the battery that your camera requires, there are several common battery types:

Lithium Ion (Li-on) — Lithium Ion batteries are rechargeable and can store charges for a long time. These proprietary batteries are expensive to replace but last a long time
Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH) — Ni-MH batteries are the most common replacement for standard AA, since they can be recharged time after time
CR-V3 — A CR-V3 batteriy basically double as 2AAs, and come in both rechargeable and non-rechargeable versions

If you can use rechargeable batteries, here's how to tell which ones will last the longest: look for the mAh (milli-Ampere-hours) number.

This tells you how long the battery will last when fully charged. A larger number is means that you'll be able to take more photos before the battery runs out.

Battery Grips

If you really want your digital SLR to take photo after photo, you might want to invest in a battery grip.

These optional battery compartments attach to the bottom of the camera, and can store multiple Li-on or AA batteries.

Besides providing your camera with more power, battery grips also have a shutter release button.

This additional button on the grip makes it much easier to take portrait photographs when you're holding the camera vertically.

Battery grips are expensive and add a lot of weight to the camera, but are useful for photographers who never want to miss a shot.

Is an Extra Battery Worth It?

If your camera uses a rechargeable Li-on battery, then my answer is yes. Here's why.

A rechargeable Li-on battery takes anywhere from 1 to 2 hours to reach a full charge.

Imagine that you're taking photos of a special event and your battery runs out. Without a backup, it's going to be awhile (and you're going to miss a lot of photo opportunities) if you have to charge your digital SLR batteries.

Sure, you think, that will never happen.

Here's the problem: digital SLR cameras aren't very good about showing you the charge left on the battery.

Simply put, the symbol for "the battery is about to run out" and "the battery has a 50% charge" are similar to each other.

If you've been taking pictures for awhile, this makes it hard to tell just how much juice is left.

I'm very careful about charging my batteries before big events, but there still have been times when my battery has run out unexpectedly.

Having a backup lets me keep taking photos so that I don't miss any special moments.

Digital SLR Battery Table

I've put together this table of all of the current digital SLR models and the batteries that they use.

Use it to determine what kind of a battery each camera uses, find a backup battery for a camera you already own, or find out more about the battery grips for each camera.

Manufacturer	Model	Battery Type	Battery Grip
Canon	Rebel XT	NB-2LH	BG-E3
	Rebel xTi	NB-2LH	BG-E3
	20D	BP-511A Li-on	BG-E2
	30D	BP-511A Li-on	BG-E2
	5D	BP-511A Li-on	BG-E4
Fuji	S3	4 AA or 2 CR-V3	Built-in
Nikon	D40	EN-EL9 Li-on	none
	D50	EN-EL3a Li-on	none
	D70	EN-EL3a Li-on	Hoodman
	D70s	EN-EL3a Li-on	Hoodman
	D80	EN-EL3e Li-on	MB-D80
	D200	EN-EL3e Li-on	MB-D200
Olympus	E300	BLM-1 Li-on	HLD-3
	E330	BLM-1 Li-on	none
	E500	BLM-1 Li-on	none
Panasonic	DMC-L1	CGR-S603A/1B Li-on	none
Pentax	K100D	4 AA or 2 CR-V3	none
	K110D	4 AA or 2 CR-V3	none
	K10D	D-LI50 Li-on	none
Samsung	GX-1S	4 AA or 2 CR-V3	none
	GX-1L	4 AA or 2 CR-V3	none
	GX-10	4 AA or 2 CR-V3	none
Sigma	SD10	4 AA	none
Sony	ALPHA A100	NP-FM55 Li-on	none