3 year Africa doc - Need help with solar charging system

J

joshuval

New member
Hi guys,

In 2 months I will begin shooting a documentary in Africa. We will be in each country, for 3 weeks each, starting in Egypt and going clockwise around the continent. We will be mostly camping and couch surfing. I am shooting on the Canon XF300 which uses the BP-955 and BP-975 batteries

More info on the trip: http://francistapon.com/Travels/Africa/
(Francis is the subject, I am the DP)


Unfortunately, Canon does not provide wattage or voltage information on either of these.


We will be taking one BP-955 and 2 BP-975's.


We would like to be able to charge them 1-2 times a week during the trip.
Additionally, we will have the following items:


2 lightweight laptops (8 cell batteries)
1 nexus tablet (charged via USB)
1 go pro Hero 3 (charged via USB)
Sennheiser EW112-p G3 wireless lav system - 4 AA batteries
1 iKan 144 on-camera light - Sony L series battery

Except for the Nexus tablet, we would like to be able to charge these between 1 and 2 times a week as well.
It is hard for me to gauge which panel/battery pack I will need for all of this.
We have a good budget, so $ will not be an issue.

We are trying to keep the production gear to a minimum, so we're not bringing sliders, tripods, loads of batteries, big cases....the total weight of the gear needs to be under 21 lbs.

This is our current gear list, if anyone is interested:

-Canon XF300
-camRade wetsuit for XF300
-B+W 82mm UV Haze MRC 010M Filter
-Tiffen 82mm HT circular polarizing multi-coated filter
-GoPro Hero 3: Black Edition
-Rode NTG-3 shotgun mic
-Rode WS7 windsheild
-Sennheiser EW112-p G3 wireless lav
-Ikan 144 on-camera Bi-Color LED light
-Chargers for xf300 and AAs and Sony L series batteries
-Lexar Professional 400x CF(XF300) and SD(gopro) cards
-Eneloop AA's + charger
-3 Canon batteries for the XF300

Any tips on the gear list would be appreciated as well.

Any info would be greatly appreciated!


Thanks!

Josh
 
Josh, out of curiosity how are you guys financing this journey? A 3 year journey even at minimum wage is $50-60k/person. Are you guys independently wealthy or simply dipping in your considerable savings? Asking cause i'm putting together a 2 month jurney to two furthest islands on the planet which all together will take 2 months and thus crew expenses (again minimum wage) is considerable.
 
Yeah, I would be interested in financing too. Its odd, even though the average salary can be quite low in Africa yet the cost of living in Africa is comparatively high (20 African cities are in the top 3rd of the most expensive cities to live in: http://www.mercer.com/press-releases/cost-of-living-rankings ). Well, this is true if you are planning to eat relatively good food and stay in relatively safe accommodations (relative to 1st World countries). The point being that Africa can often be a surprisingly more expensive place to live and travel in; especially if you are used to backpacking in Asia or Eastern Europe where you are likely to spend a lot less quantity and get more quality. Africa does not offer as much bang for your buck as you might imagine.

But if you are really willing to rough it then you should get by on a shoestring. Just keep your equipment in your sleeping bag, and remember to insure it.

If you plan on taking public transport around the continent, then make sure to take out life insurance.

Good luck.
 
This is very interesting Josh. I think Im getting what you're after here. Dont forget cans to monitor sound when its needed. Also things to keep your camera clean - Giottos rocket - tiffen lens tissue. These will be extremely important. Have you also considered a solar charger as a just in case?

What's your plan to offload and store footage along the way?
 
Test before you go, and find out which of your locations have reliable power.... How many batteries you would go through in a normal day of shooting, how long to recharge each, how many SD cards needed, offload time vs power needed, storage needed for 3 years of footage. Water proof storage. Personally I think taking only 3 camera batteries for a 3 year tour is no where near enough, but you know your shooting schedule better than us.
 
a lightweight solar charging system is not a real solution for the amount of equipment and power draw. specially in an isolated area.

get car chargers and a small portable generator. make sure all the adapter and chargers and distribution boxes would work in different countries before you leave.

i don't think you can get visas for the line drawn on that map you linked.

try to catch migration season in south Africa region an good luck on your trip.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
Josh, out of curiosity how are you guys financing this journey? A 3 year journey even at minimum wage is $50-60k/person. Are you guys independently wealthy or simply dipping in your considerable savings? Asking cause i'm putting together a 2 month jurney to two furthest islands on the planet which all together will take 2 months and thus crew expenses (again minimum wage) is considerable.
Click to expand...

Currently, the host and producer are financing this until we get picked up. There are several travel networks bidding on the broadcast/distribution contract. Bidding will end at the end of the next quarter. Part of the contract is 2 pilot episodes, each being one country, Egypt and Sudan. Until the bidding is finished I'm not allowed to say which networks, but you can probably guess which ones.

Also, we will be couch surfing and camping. Francis, the host, is a survivalist and well-experience traveler.
 
simonpwood said:
Yeah, I would be interested in financing too. Its odd, even though the average salary can be quite low in Africa yet the cost of living in Africa is comparatively high (20 African cities are in the top 3rd of the most expensive cities to live in: http://www.mercer.com/press-releases/cost-of-living-rankings ). Well, this is true if you are planning to eat relatively good food and stay in relatively safe accommodations (relative to 1st World countries). The point being that Africa can often be a surprisingly more expensive place to live and travel in; especially if you are used to backpacking in Asia or Eastern Europe where you are likely to spend a lot less quantity and get more quality. Africa does not offer as much bang for your buck as you might imagine.

But if you are really willing to rough it then you should get by on a shoestring. Just keep your equipment in your sleeping bag, and remember to insure it.

If you plan on taking public transport around the continent, then make sure to take out life insurance.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Currently, the host and producer are financing this until we get picked up. There are several travel networks bidding on the broadcast/distribution contract. Bidding will end at the end of the next quarter. Part of the contract is 2 pilot episodes, each being one country, Egypt and Sudan. Until the bidding is finished I'm not allowed to say which networks, but you can probably guess which ones.

I realize calling this a "documentary" may seem misleading at this point. It is still a doc, just will be split into episodes like a tv series. I suppose you could call it a reality show, honestly I don't care. For the sake of consistency, the contract and the bidders are referring to it as a doc, so I will too.

Also, we will be couch surfing and camping. The conditions we will be in will be no where near 1st world conditions. The idea is to live among the locals and live like the locals of each country/city we visit. Africa offers way more bang for your buck if you know where to look. I've had a local drive me 2 hours to go diving, wait for me to dive for 8 hrs, then drive me back to the people I was staying with for $40. This was in Egypt. They do a lot for very little.

Everything and everyone is insured in every way. That was our first priority.

Although, most insurance groups do not cover extreme activity in foreign countries. And as we expect all of our gear to get stolen at least once a year, that has been calculated in our budget.
 
Noel Evans said:
This is very interesting Josh. I think Im getting what you're after here. Dont forget cans to monitor sound when its needed. Also things to keep your camera clean - Giottos rocket - tiffen lens tissue. These will be extremely important. Have you also considered a solar charger as a just in case?

What's your plan to offload and store footage along the way?
Click to expand...

Ah! yes the giottos rocket. Thanks for that, I actually have one but for some reason didn't consider bringing it. I have a pair of waterproof kevlar-reinforced earbuds from sennheiser.

The solar charger was the reason I posted this thread...I can't decide on one.

Footage will be backed-up onto hard drives we will be carrying, and CF cards will be shipped back to the US where our post house will log and begin editing.
 
David W. Jones said:
Test before you go, and find out which of your locations have reliable power.... How many batteries you would go through in a normal day of shooting, how long to recharge each, how many SD cards needed, offload time vs power needed, storage needed for 3 years of footage. Water proof storage. Personally I think taking only 3 camera batteries for a 3 year tour is no where near enough, but you know your shooting schedule better than us.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your reply. I didn't really consider putting a lot of detail into my original post, so I didn't mention that we will be restocking gear and supplies often. We have budget at least 3 replacements of everything. When something goes dead, we will have the back up sent to us immediately. And the 3 batteries number was chose because of weight restrictions.
 
joshuval said:
Currently, the host and producer are financing this until we get picked up. There are several travel networks bidding on the broadcast/distribution contract. Bidding will end at the end of the next quarter. Part of the contract is 2 pilot episodes, each being one country, Egypt and Sudan. Until the bidding is finished I'm not allowed to say which networks, but you can probably guess which ones.

Also, we will be couch surfing and camping. Francis, the host, is a survivalist and well-experience traveler.
Click to expand...

In my experience the networks operate on two schemes. One is: you produce it with your own money then we put it up on our airwaves and share 50/50 ad space (meaning you have to find $ for production and then find sponsors for your 50% of ad space). The other scenario is content produced by the network (where they like the idea and are willing to put $$ behind it) but then they will pair you with an experienced prod. company - and as such they will take care of the production (including figuring out the infrastructure on how to deal with gathering the footage along the way and how to deal with electricity and local crew) - meaning it's ok to search for the solution but ultimately someone else will figure it out for you if the show is green lit. Either way good luck as it's sounds interesting!
 
Amr Rahmy said:
a lightweight solar charging system is not a real solution for the amount of equipment and power draw. specially in an isolated area.

get car chargers and a small portable generator. make sure all the adapter and chargers and distribution boxes would work in different countries before you leave.

i don't think you can get visas for the line drawn on that map you linked.

try to catch migration season in south Africa region an good luck on your trip.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your post,

What kind of generator are you talking about? Also, not all of those items will need to be charged every day, and certainly not at the same time. We will probably need each item to be charged from 0-2 times every week, as we will often be staying in someones house or in our car. The solar charger was meant for when we camp extensively far away from any power.

We have already contacted the majority of the US consulates in each of the countries and they have assured us access to visas, either via the normal protocol or special permissions. Francis, our host, has contacts in most countries that will be helping us out as well.

Thanks!
 
Solar cells are not very efficient. You would need some huge high end panels to load you stuff. And it would take hours and hours.
A small generator would make much more sense, use less room, is more efficient and independent and is easier to carny and take care of than several square meters of solar panels.

I know a guy that went on a 4 week canoe trip to Finland and thought he could charge his gear with a 1 x 3 foot panel - he run out of juice within 4 days.
 
Postmaster said:
Solar cells are not very efficient. You would need some huge high end panels to load you stuff. And it would take hours and hours.
A small generator would make much more sense, use less room, is more efficient and independent and is easier to carny and take care of than several square meters of solar panels.

I know a guy that went on a 4 week canoe trip to Finland and thought he could charge his gear with a 1 x 3 foot panel - he run out of juice within 4 days.
Click to expand...

I see...well I'm certainly open to anything- do you know of any names of these small generators?
 
Most people in Africa have mobile phones these days, and as a result you often find charging stations in even the most remote locations. I live and work in Africa, I have travelled extensively on the continent, and I have not found electricity to be that much of a problem unless I am in extremely extremely remote locations. Even then, you usually find a guy with a mobile phone and ask him where he charges it.

There is a company that makes roll-up solar panels, and charging stations in Pelican cases - I just cant remember the name. Modern solar cells do help, so long as you have lots of batteries in reserve.
 
I think the car battery is probably the most universal power source
i would investigate chargers that have a 12v input or getting an inverter with croc clips

Or both

Charging will flatten batts (of the vehicle )

Also you may need to consider some of your choices around the charging solution

btw Aa batts are I guess widely available

smm
 
imagine in a regular scenario, charging you laptop or big camera batteries would take hours each. now imagine that you need to use your camera during the day and then offload that content from the cards to an external hard drive to be able to use the card in the camera the next day. and you used up 4 AA batteries and your gopro camera is half full. your camera's first battery is half full and the laptop is almost empty on day 1. every-time you use your camera for 1-2 hours you use up your laptop battery to copy the content, and every-time you use the camera, you use the microphone for 15-30 minutes.

unless you use a newer yet underpowered laptop like macbook airs, they are 2-3 year old technology built today so they don't take much power to operate and have a big battery (20 something watt/hour if i remember correctly for the processor)

but even if you only needed to charge one tool that takes several hours on a regular outlet, and multiply the number of tools, you need constant power of a regular outlet every day, preferably at night when your not shooting, or moving from one place to the other. or wasting most of the day searching for an outlet.

a solar solution would be enough for a photographer traveling with one dslr if he is not going to use live view and he's storing a weeks worth of footage in sd or cf cards before offloading the content. and he would still be using 4 batteries.

for the portable chargers, there are 1000W generators, honda makes excelent generators, quite and lightweight. honda 1000i or honda eu1000i, make sure it's the same voltage as your chargers(120, 220). maybe 13+ kg for the generator plus fuel, but it saves you headaches and time.
 
Geting a generator through multiple borders is going to be a major headache, and its not going to be easy to lug around.

More often than not you will find that the kind of remote places that dont have any access to electricity are going to be the very same places that don't have easy access to diesel or petrol. So now that means you're also going to be luging around a jerrycan of fuel.

A generator would be fine if you have your own vehicle, but its going to be completely impractical if you're hitchhiking and taking public transport. Very few buses or private vehicles are going to be happy about you putting a container of fuel inside.

A modern solar charging station (a pelican case that includes roll out solar panels with batteries and an inverter) and lots of batteries, along with a car charger are going to be your best bet for really remote locations. That and making a good plan so that you have an idea of your itinerary and what resources are available at each stop. Probably both of these will be impractical for the type of scenario the OP is talking about though; in which case he just needs to make sure he has lots of batteries and stays in places with electricity....
 
a 1000W generator is small, looks like an electric appliance(it is) and does not require 20 liters or jerrycans or fuel. it uses like a liter or 2 of fuel for several hours of work.

a lot of parts in the world have fuel and not available electricity or at least you can get fuel to the part of city or region you'll be spending a few days or weeks, on he road before you reach the destination. i would not even think the weight/power ratio for any solar solution today would be comparable to a generator. if you go outside any city in the world today, you will get fuel and no electricity until you reach the next city. if you pass by any farm area in the world, you get less homes more roads than people and fuel but electricity will be much harder to find. ancient structures, temples, castles, ...etc. you can find fuel on the road but not much electricity.
 
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