Nikon Battery Grip

With the release of the updated mirror-less Z series ‘ll’ we now have to possibility to bolt on a brand new battery grip, the MB-N11

NIKON MB-N11 for Z6/Z7ll

It’s a hugely expensive piece of kit – and most sane human beings will ask how can NIKON have the balls to ask 400€ for a battery box?

It’s easy – it’s NIKON. Point.

The fact that mirror-less cameras burn through batteries at a rate of knots means that, with a single battery lasting less than an hour (in a production situation) it’s such a pain in the arse losing any temporary setup changes when you turn off the camera to replace the battery, that having two available makes perfect sense – yes, even at 400€, sadly.

The frustrating thing with this design is the ‘stalk’ that replaces the battery in the camera. Up until now, all the pro and semi-pro battery grips connected to the camera electronics via a set of contacts on the underside of the camera – making it a simple job of just screwing the. battery grip onto the camera and the job is done.

NIKON, for reasons best known to themselves, have decided that it’s a much better idea to make people take the battery door off, take the battery out, replace it with the battery grip, lose the battery door (or worse, break the tiny plastic hinge pins…) before being able to turn the camera on…

Brilliant – many thanks to the NIKON designers – sterling work my friends.

NIKON Z6 + battery grip MB-N11

This is what it all looks like once it’s in place. Sure, it does have the added shutter and AF-ON buttons and front and rear thumb wheels for adjustments in a vertical configuration, and with two batteries should last (me at least) a whole show…but I must be f*****g mad to pay all that….for this….but I probably will.