External power source for 50D?

Recty

Recty

New member
Is there a way I can provide power to my 50D besides the batteries?

I'm wanting to do a long time lapse but I cant do a lot because of 2 reasons.

1) It's cold here, the batteries dont last nearly as long as during the summer.

2) Due to wanting to do my time lapse at night, a lot of the pictures are 3-4 second exposures, so they drain the battery faster than a normal photo would.

Put those two together and I'm getting about 200 shots off a single charge.

I realize I could buy a grip so I can use two batteries, but what I'd really like to do is plug my camera into a laptop and provide power through a USB cable or something of that nature...

Anyone know if that is possible?
 
Well that is cool, but how about if I'm 2 miles hiked up a hill with just my laptop and my camera... is there a way I can do it without AC power nearby?
 
depending on the interbals between the shots you are probably going to have to just shoot until it dies, then swap the bat out with a fresh one. They also have external (may be that link, didn't look) packs that you could probably surround with hot packs ina cooler to keep warm and extend the life of.
 
I looked at the externals, but wasn't able to find a cable to match the 50D. Check the ones on B&H and see if it could be under a different nomenclature I don't know about, (I'm Nikon). If you can somehow contain the lower portion of the camera body and put a heat pack under it, using two batteries with the grip may help some.
 
Alrighty, thanks guys :) I'll keep looking around, I've already checked through B&H for what I could find before I asked on here and didnt have much luck.

My biggest problem with swapping out the battery is I'm sure I'll change the shot a tiny tiny bit when I open the cover, pull out the battery and then put a new one back in.

And yeah, I didnt say the hike two miles part in my first post, my bad ;) That's the idea I'd like to be able to do, doesnt look feasible at this point though.

I may be able to set up something with a heat pack and the grip but that's kind of ghetto, I was hoping to just be able to plug into my laptop and run off that, it seems to simple.
 
This is, btw, my first attempt...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-YeS9kWLn4

I took these about 2 months ago and just thought I'd see what I could do and just got around to it.

Those were about 30 seconds apart which is too much, but that's why I did it so I can figure that out ;) I think it will be better about 20 seconds apart and then played around 24 frames per second, it will be smoother. With the 30 seconds apart it just became too apparent that the stars were moving a long distance between shots.

That's interesting, I just watched the youtube version of my video and it's really dark, you cant see a lot of the stars that are in the video.
 
They make AC adapters for your car cigarette lighter. So, you could use one of those, and then the adapter that Misled linked to. You'd have to keep your car running so you don't drain your car battery, but isn't your art worth a tank of gas?
 
:) I've seen references from some of the celestial photographers on my Canon board to using marine batteries with inverters and then a cord like was linked to change it back again. You have a problem with weight if you're planning on packing it too far though. Something along those lines may be the best bet for remote shooting though. A DC>AC power source that you can plug a AC>DC camera cord into. I see on woot.com today they're selling a big battery pack. I know absolutely nothing about the one they're selling but you might be able to do something with something like that. :)
 
A 110v inverter hooked up to a fully charged 12v deep cycle marine battery should provide hours of power. I've done this while camping with my boat. Just make sure the watt rating of the inverter is greater than the watts consumed by the charger. Deep cycle batteries are preferable in this application because they are designed to give up small quantities of charge over time, versus delivering maximum juice in bursts (to turn over engines).
 
I agree with everyone above, but let's go a little getto and see if this could work.

The battery grips give an option of using a set of double "A" batteries. The Nikon if I remember right use six. This gives 9 volts of power. The current in DC doesn't matter because current is drawn from the batteries in the amount needed by what voltage is supplied.

So with that thought, a crap load of 9 volt batteries could be connected together in "parallel" and connected to the connections of the battery grip, positive to positive, and negitive to negitive to supply power. I don't know how long this would last, but figuring 3 9 volt batteries, or maybe even 2 would keep up with one standard camera battery, using ten or twelve might get you where you need to be.

Now, would I try this on my camera. Heck no. But it's a thought anyway.
 
The inverter route seems a bit extreme. Since the adapter mentioned is converting AC to DC, why not just start at DC and build your own?

Buy the adapter and build your own battery pack for it to plug into.
 
beerguy said:
Even better: DC-Coupler DR-400
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the good ideas, guys.

I saw the DR-400 yesterday on BH, but I'm pretty much a noob when it comes to electronics, I feel kind of like Misled in that I think I could probably rig up something to work but do I want to test it out on my camera? I dunno ;)

I'd really like to keep the weight down too... lugging a 40lb marine battery up to the top of the Chugach range doesnt appeal to me, plus a laptop plus my camera bag... yeesh, I'm not in good enough shape for that.
 
beerguy said:
No 40lb battery required. That cable and 18 AA rechargeables. :)
Click to expand...

Ah, that sounds much lighter... and I'd basically just need to do a little research on making my own battery pack.

This is what I got last night... but I'd really like to do one from high up on the mountain range looking down at Anchorage as it gets dark and then the stars come out. That would be my "end game" but who knows if I'll ever make it there. We still have 3.5 months until the baby is born and my life is already getting hectic ;)

<object width="660" height="525"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2UY-c8Ocy14&hl=en_US&fs=1&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2UY-c8Ocy14&hl=en_US&fs=1&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="660" height="525"></embed></object>

I'm not sure why the white balance changed so much last night? Seems odd, it was the first time I've ever taken pictures as JPG and not RAW, I'm wondering if it had something to do with that.
 
Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy.


battery_pack.png
 
Thanks :) So I'm assuming the diagram means...

Hook three batteries together, all positives linked with all negatives. Build 6 of those. Take those 6 and link the positives together and the negatives together.

How many volts would this be? 1.5v x 6? 9v? And putting 3 batteries into each cell would just make it last a long time?

I'm really not up much on electronics, I used to do this kind of stuff in high school with RC cars and planes, but it's been 10 years.
 
Yup - You've got it.

Rechargeables are 1.25V each. If you wanted to use alkaline you'd only need to fill 5. Your BP511 battery is 7.4V, this is 7.5. Close enough.
 
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