Last fall I replaced my Nikon D-40X with a Nikon D3100, and have been very happy with one exception...twice now, the Kibbie Lake trip and last weekend, I had a reasonably charged battery fail in the morning until I warmed it up by hand, after which it worked fine. The former battery was the EL-9, the new one is the EL-14. Have others encountered poor cold weather performance from Nikon's EL-14?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2012 06:48PM by ttilley.

Quote
ttilley
Last fall I replaced my Nikon D-40X with a Nikon D3100, and have been very happy with one exception...twice now, the Kibbie Lake trip and last weekend, I had a reasonably charged battery fail in the morning until I warmed it up by hand, after which it worked fine. The former battery was the EL-9, the new one is the EL-14. Have others encountered poor cold weather performance from Nikon's EL-14?

Mine battery worked fine at Tenaya Lake last January. But it had been in the car and probably didn't get all that cold. It's always a good idea to carry a spare battery and it'd stay a bit warming in your pocket.

Note: IIRC the minimum temperature for the D3100 is listed at 32°F.

32F is a common limit for electronics, as is 10,000 ft. elevation. In the 1990s I was also once amused to see a Trimble GPS spec state a 95% non-condensing humidity limit...pretty much meant the GPS shouldn't be used anywhere near the Golden Gate.

I was just a bit surprised because I never had the 'warm the battery' issue with the EL9.

If you're shooting in a cold environment I'd suggest you keep the battery in an inside pocket until you're using the camera, and then put it in the camera.
Cold is death to batteries. You need to keep them warm. A cold battery can act like it's dead until you warm it up.
I've often walked around with batteries in my pants pocket.

I always keep an extra battery in my pocket when shooting in extreme cold. I also have a total of 3 batteries which I start off charged each day if possible. http://chemistry.about.com/od/howthingsworkfaqs/f/coldbattery.htm



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2012 08:47PM by hotrod4x5.

I'm coming to the view that the new camera, likely, simply draws more power than the one it replaced because of the 'blow the dust off the sensor' feature (the lack of which is why I replaced the other one), and that this extra draw makes cold a bigger issue (it really wasn't _that_ cold this time around, just marginally below freezing). So the battery goes in my pocket in the morning.