D200 Battery Problem

try cleaning the contacts on the battery, as well as the in camera contacts.

The three likely possibilities are: (1) Your D200 is malfunctioning, (2) Your battery chargers is not charging your batteries properly, and (3) all 3 of your batteries have aged.

(3) seems to be remote that all 3 batteries go bad at the same time. To determine (1) and (2), the easiest way is to find someone else with a camera and/or charger/battery to determine whether your batteries work on their camera or their batteries work on your camera. That "someone else" could be your local camera store.

If your batteries check out okay .. and your camera contacts are clean .. it could be the capaciter in the camera has failed .. remember when you first got your D200 and you had to leave your battery in it for a certain amount of time before it would power up properly .. well, the capaciter is like a battery that has to have a certain amount of current stored before the camera works. Also remember that leaving your D200 unused for a long period of time still causes battery drain even when you have shut off the camera.

I checked all three batteries on my D70s and they worked fine on it. I checked the contacts in the camera they looked clean but I wiped them off and the camera works fine now. I guess there might have been something I didn't see or maybe one of the contacts was out or alignment and cleaning it re-aligned it, anyway the camera works fine now. Unfortunately, I discovered the problem after a 2 hour hike up a mountain to a spot that I had planned on shooting at today. So the real lesson I learned today is to check all the equipment just before the hike even though it was all working last night.

Glad you could resolve it, Brent. And good call on the pre-flight checkout before needing it to work.

Incidentally, it IS possible for those batteries (though not likely ever all three, as Shun points out) to just up and fail out of the blue - even when the charger seems to be going through the motion of a normal charge cycle. It just happens. The battery chemistry can even be fine, but the chip built into the battery can get stupid, etc. I've had one EN-EL3e just... stop. From being a young battery with tons of capacity, to: Never Work Again in one charge. It's always worth having at least two stand-bys, that's for sure. Oh, and don't forget that your CHARGER can die, too. It's one good reason for having the optional grip for your D200... it comes with a battery sled that lets you use AAs in a real pinch.

Another tip is to acquire a good DMM (Digital Multi-Meter), and then you can use that to measure the DC voltage coming off the terminals. You can get one at Radio Shack, or you can get one from electrical supply stores. A major brand name for DMM is a "Fluke", and these are often carried by electricians. You switch the "mode switch" to measure "DC Voltage", you may have to switch another switch to set the voltage range you are expecting. Then you hold the BLACK lead to the battery Ground Terminal and the RED lead to the battery (+) Terminal. The meter will then display a digital voltage reading of the DC voltage thats there, before you load it into the camera. If the DMM tells you there is very low or no voltage coming off the battery, then you KNOW the battery is bad before you ever put it in the camera. A good DMM is one of those kind of things that its just good to have around the house. Once you get the hang of using it, you'll see all kinds of applications.

It's amazing the things that can happen to spoil a shooting project. I could see that happening to me because many times I do not turn the camera on before I leave. I usually get ready the night before.

Another possibility is is you have a battery grip that the grip has become loose and needs tightening. Just a thought.

Yes I had a problem with my D200 battery/charger. The problem was the charger - it appeared to charge properly but was not really charging at all, I was O/S at the time and borrowed another charger, and charged the batteries. Then bought another charger and the problem went away. No refund on the faulty charger!