Nikon D7000 manual Keeping Track of Your Batteries and Memory Cards

Chapter 14 ■ Nikon D7000: Troubleshooting and Prevention 461

KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR BATTERIES AND MEMORY CARDS

Here’s a trick I use to keep track of which batteries are fresh/discharged, and which mem- ory cards are blank/exposed. I cut up some small slips of paper and fold them in half, forming a tiny “booklet.” Then I write EXPOSED in red on the “inside” pages of the booklet and UNEXPOSED in green on the outside pages. Folded one way, the slips read EXPOSED; folded the other way, the slips read UNEXPOSED. I slip them inside the plastic battery cover, which you should always use when the batteries are not in the camera (to avoid shorting out the contacts), folded so the appropriate “state” of the batteries is visible. The same slips are used in the translucent plastic cases I use for my memory cards. (See Figure 14.1.) For my purposes, EXPOSED means the same as DISCHARGED, and UNEXPOSED is the equivalent of CHARGED. The color coding is an additional clue as to which batteries/memory cards are good to go, or not ready for use.

Figure 14.1

Mark your batteries—or memory cards—so you’ll know which are ready for use.

Agood use for those extra batteries is in the Nikon MB-D11 Multi-Power Battery Pack (about $250), which holds an EN-EL15 battery, effectively doubling your total shooting time. The MB-D11 can also be used with the included AA Battery Holder, allowing you to use six AA batteries in a pinch (included) so users can use AA batteries as a power backup.

The MB-D11 power pack is sometimes called a vertical grip, because it includes a sup- plemental AE-L/AF-L button, vertically oriented shutter release button with lock, and front and rear command dials. The control combo makes it more convenient to shoot vertically oriented photos with the camera rotated 90 degrees.

There are several techniques you can use to stretch the longevity of your D7000’s bat- tery. To get the most from each charge, consider these steps:

■Playback menu: Image Review. Turn off automatic image review after each shot using this menu option. You can still review your images by pressing the Playback button. Or, leave image review on, but set the display for the minimum 4 seconds as described next.