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The Only Battery Pack Designated for the Nikon D200
Date of Review: Mar 24, 2006
The Bottom Line: The EN-EL3e, recommended battery pack for the Nikon D200. Earlier series EN-EL3's in the D200 will not provide charge information. Buy a spare,use it and store it in the MB-D200.
The Nikon EN-EL3e is the only battery pack designated for the newly released Nikon D200 DSLR. The earlier EN-EL3 series will work in the camera however these earlier battery packs lack the internal circuitry that sends battery charge status and condition information back to the camera for display in the camera menu's "Battery Info" in the "Set Up Menu".
I was fortunate to be able to order a second EN-EL3e with the accessory grip MB-D200 from B&H Photo. The EN-EL3e battery pack as well as the D200 were in short supply for quite some time and only recently have been back in stock. High demand for the D200 and owners D100's with an earlier series of EN-EL3's recalled by Nikon for overheating cells may result in future supply shortages for this battery pack.
Physically the battery weighs 2.8 ounces with a rated capacity of 7.4 volts/1500mAh. Nikon's literature rates the battery pack to provide power enough for an astounding 1800 shots according to one their shooting examples and 340 shots according to a second example.
In my own use, I have found that the EN-EL3e provided enough power for a good day's worth of steady shooting, for about 500 images with 4 downloads. The battery packs used in tandem in the MB-D200 will provide twice the range of use. Each pack charged from a 0% charge to full in just about 2 hours.
In conclusion, the EN-EL3e pack is the only rechargeable pack that will provide maximum performance for the D200 camera and works perfectly either by itself or with a second EN-EL3e in the MB-D200.
Update April 15, 2006
I now have a couple of charge/discharge cycles on my battery packs and I was wondering why the charge reading on the camera's menu only read 97% full when it should be reading 100%. When I installed the battery initially in the MB-D200, both sides read 100% charge. This was a concern, so I called Nikon's tech support line. According to the technician, that inital reading of 100% I saw in the display was just the initial charge reading that sets the parameters for subsequent readings and that the EN-EL3e battery pack will gradually increase in battery life and level of charge. He said that in a few more cycles, the level should come back up to 100% and there isn't anything to be concerned with.
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