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I have an entry level DSLR Nikon D3300 which I left in its bag couple of days back. Today I found it was still turned on. I was just wondering if there can be any trouble because of that. Will this cause any kind of malfunctioning or anything in the camera? Maybe it's not a problem in the short term but in the long run it will create problems? If that is the case please let me know.

It has happened few times earlier as well, so I need your advice.

Michael C
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user219215
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2 Answers2

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It's fine. Your camera will go into a low power sleep mode. I know people who never use the off switch and leave their cameras in this state all the time. Your battery may run down a little faster than otherwise, but that's it.

mattdm
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  • I'm one of those people. I rely on the camera's sleep function. It reaches 'ready to shoot' very quickly with only the shutter button. I keep a spare battery, but rarely need to swap to the second one – laurencemadill Aug 13 '17 at 01:23
  • @Laur: Be careful with that. If you ever use any external accessories, then your battery will get drained to empty. I use a external GPS and have the camera configured to not time out. My camera at least (Nikon D3s) comes on so fast that there it's basically ready as fast as I can move my finger from the on switch to the shutter button. I do leave the camera on deliberately sometimes to keep the GPS fix current. The camera start up time is not a issue. – Olin Lathrop Aug 13 '17 at 14:59
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Any modern camera of this type will protect its batteries. When the batteries get too low, the camera will go into low power mode, then shut off altogether. Depending on how you have your camera set up, it may even time out and shut itself off after some minutes of no user activity. There is usually a configuration setting for this.

The worst consequence of leaving the camera on is a totally discharged battery the camera will refuse to use until charged, but no physical damage.

Some low end point and shoots might be less careful with battery management, but I really expect this to be standard on a Nikon D3300.

Olin Lathrop
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  • Actually, with lithium battery chemistries, I would expect the worst possible consequence to be a dead battery from over-discharge. Hopefully no camera manufacturer is stupid enough to use unprotected lithium battery cells... The worst possible consequence however should be just a depleted battery that needs to be recharged. – user Aug 15 '17 at 06:57