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Does anyone know of any solar-powered systems with enough output to charge the average DSLR battery? I'm considering going to somewhere rather remote and might be away from mains electricity (or even portable generators) for two or three weeks. I have considered taking a film camera and making do with that, but would rather take my digital gear. The cameras I'd be looking to charge are a Nikon D200 and a Canon S90. |
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Check out the FreeLoader Pro from Solar Technologies in the UK. I bought one online last year, and it's worked okay for me so far, charging the Li-ion "brick" battery for my Canon 350D, although I admit I haven't actually used it that much. Comes with adaptors for different models of mobile phone too. |
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You can do it; Thom Hogan has a detailed explanation of his solar charging setup. As D. Lambert says though, it might still be more economical to just take a bunch of batteries. For example, I get 500-1000 frames out of my D90 on one charge in decent weather, so two batteries is more than enough for a week -- and at this rate, one battery corresponds to roughly 15-25 rolls of film. How many rolls of film would you realistically take with you? (The place where this breaks down, of course, is that you don't know exactly how many frames are left on the battery.) |
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It sort of depends on what sort of charger you can find for your camera batteries, I think. Most popular cameras have aftermarket chargers that'll work with a 12V power supply (a car outlet, for example), but that's a pretty big solar panel. The smaller panels generally put out enough juice to power a USB device, which is 5V. I considered the same thing, as I take my camera on camping trips for up to two weeks. At this point, though, it's a whole lot easier and more cost-effective to just buy a bunch of batteries. Easier to carry, too, if you're talking about one of the big solar units. If I had other stuff to charge, too (GPS, etc.), I might swing back toward the solar panel solution. |
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AA batteries are your savior here. I use the previous version of this one: http://www.siliconsolar.com/solar-battery-charger-aa-aaa-c-and-d-p-135.html It takes 6 hours to charge a set of 4 AAs, the docs say less but maybe this didn't test on 2700 mah as I use. There are two ways to get AAs into your DSLR, either by a Pentax K-x which is an entry-level DSLR with excellent image quality in a light body. You can also often get a battery-grip which takes AAs but that means more weight. BTW, the K-x can take 1100 on 4 AAs! You can also go to a bulk store and by 20 AAs for $20, that's 5500 photos! |
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