3 step strategy for digital camera batteries in your photo shoots
You are in the middle of a photo shoot when … your batteries go down. Nightmare. But, well, at least on workshops I’ve seen cases like that. The next thing you see is a photographer who is desperately asking if somebody got a (insert camera brand) battery charger or a spare digital camera battery. Not good.
In a way yours truly is guilty for those situation as well. In a number of posts I preached tethered shooting. And no matter if you tether by radio or via USB cable – someone has to deliver the energy for high bandwidth signal transmission. It’s one more task that your good old batteries have to cater for.
That’s why I think I owe you a strategy for dealing with rechargeable batteries for photo shoots. A strategy, that ensures your batteries always hold a bit more power than you actually need, never letting you down.
It’s not so long ago that I felt the typical frustration that users often have when using rechargeable batteries: they are too expensive, too heavy, the battery charger is too bulky, they take too long to charge and once they are charged they loose their current in a matter of hours and much more. Nowadays I don’t feel this pain anymore. Partially because I decided to exchange my big pile of low quality batteries with a hand full of high quality batteries. Also because over time I developed a strategy for recharging batteries faster than I consume power.
If that sounds interesting for you, now check out the video.
I hope this provides you with the one or the other nugget of information that keeps you powered up like the Duracell rabbit – just rechargeable.
If you like to have a look at the batteries that I am really happy with, then please follow these affiliate links:
The battery, that makes your MacBook go all night
Hypermac External Battery for MacBook, iPhone, iPad
Rechargable AA Batteries with Eneloop Technology
USA: SANYO eneloop 4 Pack AA NiMH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries
Europe: Panasonic Infinium AA Rechargeable Batteries X 4
Check this Battery Charger
GP Powerbank 15min AA Battery Charger
My Camera Batteries
Canon LP-E6 Battery Pack for Select Canon Digital SLR Cameras
I wish your good light!
-- Michael
What a coincidence: A minute ago Eric Slivka revealed in his blogpost on Apple's New Rechargeable AA Batteries, that the new Apple batteries are akatually rebranded Sanyo Eneloops. Seems like good ol' Apple shares my preference for eneloop cells. Excellent choice!
Hi Michael,
I really apreciate your work and knowlege that you share with us, but in this video you really could compress the content into "buy more batteries". At last from my point of view.
I hoped that there were some other tricks or that newer cams just did not consume so much energy. Normaly I can shoot for days with my battery pack and tethered shooting sucked it within roundabout 20 Minutes. Shock!!!
But anyways, thank you so much and keep on the good work!
Cheers,
Jan-Marco
20 minutes? There's definitely something going wrong. With my 5D / 5D MK II I do a 5 hour / 600 pics or so shoot on a single battery, while the camera is tethered via USB. A lot of times I even use a cable that is much too long (5 meters). I always have a flash or a flashtrigger on top. Usually I use my 28-300 USM zoom, which for sure is consuming quite a lot of power. So 20 minutes sounds like either a technical defect on one of the sides, or like the cam/laptop combination is inefficient for some reason. Which cam / laptop are you using?
I wish you good light!
-- Michael
Hi Michael,
Thanks for another great video. We are differently going to check out those batteries, I think the new Apples batteries are just rebranded versions of the ones you use. http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/apples-rechargeable-aa-batteries-are-...
We’ve just got our new Atlases after watching your review. I had my first go with them last night http://www.dotanddancreate.co.uk/blog/item/photography-portraits-6.html
Thanks again, we really look forward to your videos on Thursdays.
Dot and Dan
Dot and Dan, awesome portraits on your blog! Your style is unique and excellent!
Regarding the batteries: Yes, apple obviously licensed Sanyo Eneloops which are very similar to (if not identical with) Panasonic Infinium. I found a clip on youtube that shows how much better the Sanyos perform if compared to the GP2700 (which by the way are not bad either): http://bit.ly/aLGnKk
Hi,
I had earlier sent a request as to how to view the clippings. I had downloaded this software but some how I could not view the clippings. Earlier you had been using YouTube kind of version that was pretty simple to use and we could follow the great tips you share.
Can you not additionally use something that lay men can use them.
Regards
Inder
New Delhi
Hi Inder,
from your post I understand that the video player I am using over here, does not work on your system. I am so sorry for that. Since you first mentioned it, I do one additional thing: at the bottom of every post I feature a section "Related Links". In this section you will always find a link to the respective video on Youtube. Can you probably try out if Youtube is working for you?
Usually when browse to one of my posts over here on my blog, you should see the player with a still image and a big button "Click here to play" in the middle of the still image. If you click anywhere on the image, the clip should start to play. Once you click again, the clip should pause.
What is the behaviour in your case? What do you see? Does it show any error message or text?
Maybe we can arrange a quick little online meeting in which we can share our screens. Then I can have a look what does not work in your case. How about that?
I am using the Flowplayer in particular, because it is an open source project. It's one of this tools that democratize media a bit because now pretty much everybody can feature video on their blog. You don't even need to pay for the player. I'm loving this and hope that a lot of people make use of this opportunity. That's why I'm pretty reluctant to swap the player against any commercial player.
What I have in the pipe is a new script that would offer a quicktime player fallback in case the visitor does not have the required version of flash. But I still have to improve this script before I roll it out here onto the blog.
I wish you good light!
-- Michael
Hallo,Michael.
I tell you: I had a bad experience with rechargeable AA batteries.
So I set my speedlights with AA Lithium batteries.
Live long an prosper.
Pedro.
I mean AA non rechargeable Lithium batteries
Hey there,
Great blog, I just stumbled upon it and I’m already a fan.
excellent video and information, I think at the most I have about 48 AAA batteries in my camera bag. I however, don't have rechargable batteries cause for some reason I didn't think that would last as long but you have givem me something to think about.
I'm glad to hear that, Gerald. Yep, go a bit greener, use rechargeables. For me one of the killer advantages is that the flash recycle time of my speedlights is a good deal shorter compared to using non rechargeable batteries.
good post. thank you for share.