Battery options for Digital SLR's

[john_martello]

This summer I will be going on a month long backpacking trip in

Alaska wilderness, so I plan on purchasing a good camera for this

trip. I will be spending the entire month away from civilization

(no power outlets where one could charge batteries). I would really

like to purchase a Digital SLR, but I am worried about battery life

and image storage. The Nikon D70 is right in my price range, but

I'm pretty sure that this camera cannot take AA batteries. Is there

any kind of adapter or vertical grip that uses AA batteries for this

new Nikon product? My guess is no, but I would appreciate it if

someone could let me know if there is any equipment that could help

me out. Thanks

[awahlster]

Good luck!

[awahlster]

For a month long backpacking trip in Alaska I would suggest a nice Canon F-1N with a 24mm f2.8 50mm f1.8 and 200mm f2.8IF and 2X-B this would give you 24mm to 400mm and a camera that will work with out a battery if needed and for a year or more on a single 6 volt Silver Oxide about 1/3 the size of a AA battery carry three and you'l neve need the third. Add 20+ rolls of the film of your choice and your set. When you get back you drop the film off at the lab and your down. Slides prints what ever. Need a few for the web have them scanned to a Kodak CD for a few bucks. And when you are all done this won't have cost you what the Digital Nikon body would.

 

F-1N body $300-350.00

 

24mm f2.8 nFD $100-150.00

 

50mm f1.8 nFD $20-25.00

 

200mm f2.8 IF nFD $200-250.00

 

2X-B $100-125.00

 

20 rolls of average film $4.50 roll + developing $8.00-12.00 = $250-330.00 ****FOR 720 images****

 

3) 6V Silver oxides $21-24.00

 

Total $991.00-1254.00 Total weight of above equipment/film 5.4lbs

 

Nikon D70 BODY ONLY $1000.00 with 18-70mm lens $1300.00

 

(the 18-70mm is equal to a 28-105 in 35mm)

 

Add 8) 512Mb cards at $144.00 each = $1152.00 Thats approx. 672 images at max resolution. You could get Micro drives but if one failed or got lost you would lose 1/2 your photos

 

Add how many $35.00 dollar batteries???????? Hoping they would hold their charge unused for weeks.

 

NOW add a portable HD of some sort and the battery problem and the weight and the cost and and and Film looks pretty good.

 

 

The digital is lighter unless you figure in the other lenses it would take to equal the focal range of the Canon F-1N outfit.

 

The other digital option would be a Canon Powershot Pro 1 8mp at about a grand pluss all the support stuff focal range 28-200mm =35mm

much easier on batteries (though still proprietary and recharagable only) and at max resolution you will need evn more storeage with the larger files.

 

WOW film looks pretty good to me.

 

 

And this is with NO PRINTS NO SLIDES NO POST CAPTURE WORK and all the time that involves.

 

Sorry but there's sometings film just does better and 30 days in the bush is one of them.

[awahlster]

With film you could double your number of images for a 1 lb weight gain. And a cost of $250-330.00 that's 1440 photos divided by 30 days is 1.5 rolls of 36exp per day. Now that would cover your trip..

 

 

Whats the operating temp of the Nikon most digitals end about freezing. The Canon F-1N is good for Antartica to the top of Everest.

 

Hows the sealing on the D70? A Canon F-1N is damn near water proof it will certinly stand a good down pour. Look at all the football games they lined the field at.

 

Want to save wieght go F1N and a Tokina 28-70mm f3.5/4.5 SD zoom add a 200mm f4.0 nFD and you have a two lens outfit small compact and bullet proof. AND cheap the Tokina zoom sells for about $75.00 on ebay the 200mm f4.0 a little more.

[jimstrutz]

I go for a week at a time in the Alaska bush with a digital SLR, but that's on a raft that packs all the extra stuff. How you gonna carry all those extra batteries?

 

One option is to make up a large 12 volt lithium pack to use as a charger for the camera batteries. I recommend lithium batteries, because of their light weight. Wouldn't be cheap though. You could also use the 12 volt pack to charge the batteries on a portable digital hard drive.

 

I have 12 volt adapters for charging my Canon DSLR batteries and the ones in a 20GB X's DrivePro. The system works fairly well, but on a raft I can just pack a car battery for power. Hard to fathom doing digital for a month out of a pack.

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

The most economically sensible solution is to take a samll car battery or similar to recharge everything but even then i don't think a sigle charge of a high amp battery would come close to doing the job.

<br>Large solar charger maybe (they are quite light)?

[awahlster]

A small car battery would weigh about 20-25 lbs and most wet cells like a car battery have a hard time holding a charge for a month. This guy said Backpacking for a month. His gear and food for a month will wiegh close to 70lbs not including camera gear I figured I was killing him with 5-6 lbs of film gear now you want to saddle him with 4lbs of digital camera gear and a 20+ pound battery YEH RIGHT>

 

FILM FILM FILM

[rob_murray]

I doubt digital is the answer in this case...with cost, batteries,

weight, memory card costs,no electricity, etc...

Plus in the month you are gone they will have come out with a new camera to make yours obsolete.

 

I would go for a lightweight but very capable film camera like

Canon Rebel TI $215 new (14oz)?

Canon 22-55 USM $125 used(6oz)

Canon 75-300 USM $165 new (18oz)?

Bogen DIGI tripod/head $100 new, 20 rolls of film.

Batteries last forever in this camera, CR2 Lithiums.

I have the original ones in my camera from last year

and have shot about 40 rolls, they still show full.

When you return you can get the Digital Rebel and

still have complete use of these lenses.

[raymond bradlau]

How many shots do you get with a D70?

 

With my D2h I get over 1000, so thats about 28 rolls of 36 exposure film per battery,

1 battery is much smaller and weighsless that 36 rolls of film, and lets not forget you

will need a few speeds of film

 

Having owned a Canon A1 and F1 (great cameras BTW) I think the car battery would

bighter than my old FD kit (:

 

If you are going to carry food for an entire month (plus extra for saftey) tent/sleeping

bag, some clothes (lots of good socks) I doubt an extra couple batteries or 100 rolls

of film is going to matter

 

If you are not going to try to carry everything (I assume this would be the case) when

you resupply just plane on having a battery/film waiting

 

I think some planing would be in order here, to get the most out of this trip

 

just my 2 cents

[awahlster]

But the batteries won't hold a charge for a month being turned on and off all the time. start up on a digital takes more power then constant shooting. Also the lens will have a great big effect on how long the batteries last. AND IF the batteries do die then what you have a brick you need to haul around totally unuseable. The Canon F-1N works from 1/90th to 1/2000th with no battery at all in the camera.

 

I would strongly suggest that the origional poster try to find someone else who has gone a full month away from power with a simular camera shooting a simular number of shots and ask thier advice. I know the digital photographers in Afganistan were being driven NUTS trying to find a place to plug in thier lap tops battery cahrgers and stuff one guy wrote a whole article just about how screwed up digital was in the third world where things like a 110V outlet ain't on every wall.

[trevor_little1]

A few friends of mind went on a 3 week excursion last year and documented it all on a video camera. We bought a Solar charger from Canadian tire (automotive section) and they used that to charge the batteries throughout the trip with no problems, until it fell in a lake.

 

My advice however, is there is a place for digital photography, and it isnt in the Alaska Wilderness. Even if you bring lots of batteries the cold will kill them (depending where you are in alaska), its pretty cold in northern alberta in the summer.

 

Go on ebay, and get a cheap old pentax, or nikon manual camera, with almost no battery reliance (except for meter) and a few lenses for far less then a D70, and then you have a strong metal camera that can survive the elements instead of a plastic electronic thing.

 

have fun man,

 

peace -

[greg_miller8]

I think John wants a digital camera. So do what some other have said and buy a manual camera (FM or FM2 or even an FE2) and a few lenses on Ebay. Use them on this trip to Alsaka. When you return, sell everything on Ebay. You should end up with all your money back (market value of these items is not going to change in a few months. Then buy your digital camera to use in more civilized areas. Just be sure to test all the used gear before you leave on your trip. This method gives you use of good gear for free and you also end up with that shiny new digital camera.

[wyverndude]

First off, I totally agree with everyone that has said that battery power issues are pretty much a total show-stopper on this one; and film is the way to go.

 

However... in such circumstances where electrical power isn't an issue; an ideal solution to the whole digital storage issue is a camera with a built-in CD-ROM drive.

 

I have a Sony CD200 (They make a 5MP version now) -not only is each CD-ROM good for 156MB (or 185, or 193, depending on who's saying), but carrying even 100 of them wouldn't be much of an issue. (Same thickness as a normal CD, but only 3" diameter). Shopping around, you can get 100 of them for less than $40.

 

Which I'd say handily solves the cost/image and storage issues, but since all of the CD-ROM-storage cameras that I know of are Sony's and use proprietary batteries, you NEED a charging outlet...

 

Fortunately, this isn't usually too hard to find... which would solve the problem for many of us, but not for John.

 

The solar charger suggestion could be workable. Also there are hand-cranked generators used on portable radios, and I'd thought someone was going to make one (a hand cranked generator) for cellphones.

 

Though I'd have to guess it might be easier to carry a 20lb car battery than to crank a generator enough to charge up a digital camera battery.

 

If you could get a car charger, and if you used a 12V solar panel to power it... it might actually work.

 

Or, you could just go with film. :)

[jeff_rivera5]

Here's what I'd suggest.

 

Buy a camera that takes AA NiMH batteries. Have four charged sets for the trip. People are reporting 250-350 shots on the Pentax DLSR with these. I'd buy a brick of 48 AA batteries from Costco. I'd get an image tank or some other storage device that would work with the AA NiMH. I would find a solar panel that charges AA batteries.

 

Plan:

 

Shoot only JPEG with no after shot preview. For must have shots, you can shoot RAW. I would try like hell to not do any image review in the field. Treat this like film, and get your exposure right. Or bracket two shots (I find meter exposure and 1 plus works great for digital, rarely needing 1 minus). This should use less power than fiddleing with review.

 

Dump your images to the tank when your cards are full. Don't preview with the tank either! Use the charger when you can to freshen you NiMHs.

 

Finnally, take a small film based SLR body that fits your lenses and some film, just in case. I think this strategy will cover a month. Yes, you'll pay a weight premium, but you may be able to make it work.

[jerii_cassidy]

Hello there, I work out in the bush where batteries and storage etc are always an issue. With all of the above discussions taken into account, I now take my 35ml indestructible olympus om2 with a 2.8 - wide angle to 80ml lens which covers an awful lot of shots, with however much film I want to take. I also have a little half decent nikon digital with several cf cards and two sets of batteries (lithium)I have taken some amazing shots with this little guy and this way I am good for almost all weather etc. Good luck and have fun.