Battery Power in the Wilderness

Hi, I'm Ian Plant, and right now I'm on a multi-day trek in the beautiful Semien mountains of Ethiopia. And I often get asked the question what do you do about battery power when you're in the wilderness for an extended period of time? One thing you can do is bring along a lot of extra batteries, but when you're traveling in the back country, the last thing you want to do is add a lot of additional weight. And also even if you bring a lot of extra batteries, if you're doing a lot of shooting you run the risk of running out of power. So what I do when I know I'm going to be away from a power source for several days or more I bring a small lightweight solar panel charger and an accessory battery and the battery plugs into the charger.

And while I'm hiking or kayaking I'll just hang the charger from my pack or strap it on my kayak and let it charge up whenever I'm on the move. And then if I need to charge any of my devices or batteries for my camera, I can do so. I can usually get several batteries charged from a single full charge on the accessory battery. And I still have some spare juice leftover to charge up my phone, which I use as an alarm clock or any other accessories like rechargeable batteries that I use for my headlamp. So this is a really great thing to have when I'm on a multi-day extended wilderness trek.

Of course, this setup works best when you've got a fair amount of sunlight. If conditions are a bit more overcast it might take longer to charge up the accessory battery but you still should be able to get enough of a charge, even on a somewhat overcast day to keep your camera batteries topped off as you're using them. If conditions are really overcast for an extended period of time, chances are you're not going to be doing a lot of photography anyways. So you're not going to have to worry about the power issue as much. The output for the particular battery that I'm using is a USB power cord and a lot of camera battery chargers aren't USB compatible.

So for my Canon battery, I went out and bought a third party USB compatible charger that allows me to plug in to the accessory battery and charge up my camera battery. So whether you're on an extended wilderness photography trip, or you just want a convenient source to top off your batteries, when you're in the field. I recommend a solar panel with an accessory battery. This guarantees that you always have power for your camera battery and accessory devices, wherever and whenever you go. I'm Ian Plant and thanks for watching.