Nikon EN-EL15 battery has reached the end of its working life…

Sadly the Nikon EN-EL15 battery in my Nikon 1 V1 has reached the end of its working life. It happened without there being any sign whatsoever that it would die. I took some photos one day, depleting the battery in the process, and recharged it afterwards. The next day I was greeted with the following message on the camera display.

Nikon EN-EL15 battery at the end of life

What I find curious is how can the battery be dead, if the camera can power on, briefly showing the menu and all the setting I have set? Not factory settings, but my preferred settings (ISO and so on) instead?

I’m now contemplating what 3rd party battery to buy. An original battery costs 60 Euros, which is about half as much used V1s go for on ebay. Right now I’m leaning towards the Bundlestar battery by Patona.

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Ivan Written by:

10 Comments

  1. 26/05/2016
    Reply

    Kind-of-dead? Or do they just want to sell you a new one? For my extra battery I bought a used one from Amazon for $44.99 with shipping on 4/16/14. Both of my batteries don’t hold a charge as long as they use to or so it seems. Why do these batteries cost so much.

    • Ivan
      27/05/2016
      Reply

      Yeah, it looks like it’s not entirely dead. The V1 powers up, shows the message, then the main menu and then the message again. There is no way to operate the camera. It doesn’t respond to button input. I do wonder whether this is meant to prevent the camera from taking damage or to force users to buy a new battery, which are absurdly expensive. Some 3rd party batteries only cost a 1/3 or even a 1/4. I have no idea why original EN-EL15 batteries are so expensive. I can’t imagine that they cost nearly as much to make.

    • Ivan
      04/06/2016
      Reply

      Thanks for the info Jan!

  2. Stefan
    07/06/2016
    Reply

    Thanks for the post. Nikon seems to do things differently than Canon, erring on the safe side. Before I bought a Nikon V2, I owned a Canon SX50. That camera used to drain its batteries to the very last drop of electrons. Often it stopped working in the midst of shooting, without being able to retract the lens…

    My replacement batteries for the Nikon V2 are the ANSMANN 1400-0047 A-Nik EN EL 21, for circa 7 Euro available at amaz. I’ve bought two and use them daily, Ansmann is excellent German quality.

    • Stefan
      07/06/2016
      Reply

      “Ansmann is excellent German quality.”

      But their battery is “made in China”, of course! 😉

    • Ivan
      07/06/2016
      Reply

      ANSMANN 1400-0043, which is Ansmann’s EN-EL15 replacement, costs 40 euros. It’s quite expensive and price wise not far off the original EN-EL15. As for “Made in…”, I think you have it backwards. It’s excellent Chinese quality but “Made in Germany”. 😉

  3. Ivan
    28/06/2016
    Reply

    Just a quick update: I ended up buying the cheapest battery, the ChiliPower EN-EL15 (€19). It’s working fine so far. I can’t say that there is a noticeable difference in regard to number of shots per charge, even though it offers a couple of hundred mAh less than the original EN-EL15. I will keep you guys posted. So far I have charged it only 3 times.

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