A7sII External Power Options

H

hopkins802

Well-known member
Alright guys, let's hear them all! How are people are running their A7sii externally vs using the terrible batteries / battery grip. I've seen the option of using a USB power bank and using that to slow down the drain of a single battery. Sounds like you can go awhile, but how does that effect the battery in the long run? I have a couple cheap after market batteries I could use to do this with in case it ends up burning them out.

Any other options? Anyone using a power bank and a coupler? Anyone seen this option? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3zVWy29Ivc.

Here's what I need it for. Shooting wedding video. That's it. I'm totally find with throwing a bigger battery / power bank in my pocket, or buying a belt to strap it onto. I'll be on a monopod and tripod for 80% of the day, and use the camera with it's single battery on my gimbal for when I use that.

Any and all options are super helpful as I'm getting really sick of these terrible little batteries.

Thanks!
Dan
 
I just sold my A7S II but used USB bricks and it worked fine. Since the stock batteries suck anyway, the long-term effect is fairly moot. IMO, this is the smallest setup for the camera and allows you to shoot (depending on the battery) for 2-3 hours at a time.
 
Cool. So if I keep my grip on I can estimate around 5 hours without having to swap in new batteries? On the other hand if I'm going between my gimbal and monopod often it would be helpful not to have to take the grip off and on...

When using these USB banks, does anyone know if some are more powerful than others and will keep the internal battery alive longer?

Also, anyone using this run and gun style? Wondering if there are good setups for clipping the USB bank to a belt or something ...
 
truelife said:
I just sold my A7S II but used USB bricks and it worked fine. Since the stock batteries suck anyway, the long-term effect is fairly moot. IMO, this is the smallest setup for the camera and allows you to shoot (depending on the battery) for 2-3 hours at a time.
Click to expand...

Which USB banks did you use?
 
To revise my needs. I'll be using this for external power setup for run and gun. I'll be switching from hand held, to monopod to tripod to gimbal throughout the day. For the gimbal, I'll just take the usb cable out of course and use the internal battery.

For this reason, I'm wondering if anyone has used USB power banks and had them kept on their person? Right now my thought is to get a high capacity usb bank like this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A294P4X9EWVXLJ#Ask

And then get around a 4ft micro USB chord and a small cell phone case with belt clip like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/162195360304?lpid=82&chn=ps&ul_noapp=true&var=461242205779

That way I can have the battery on my at all times, basically tethered to my camera. If I need to put the camera down, attach it to a new stabilizer, or anything like that I can just unplug the USB and plug it back in when I'm all set.

Can anyone point out anything that I might be overlooking for this setup? It seems like a cheap solution to significantly prolonging each single Sony battery, while remaining portable.

-Dan
 
For anyone interested. I just tested the Anker Powercore 20100 plugged in to the A7sii with just 1 single battery in. I had it record 4k continuously (just restarting it after 29min) back to back with no breaks for 1 hour and 41 minutes. While that might not seem impressive at first, if I were to record 4k full recordings back to back to back without the power bank it would probably be dead in 45 minutes or less. I'm running a test now without recording anything to see how long it lasts. I'll probably average those two times out to get an estimate for how long it will last on one battery during normal use (shooting for 1 - 2 minutes at a time for an 8 hour day). Will post back!
 
What about an NPF battery plate/adapter into a dummy A7s battery? I like the idea of power banks but I have a bunch of NP-F batteries laying around and am in the process of rigging my A7sii up with an adapter so I can just use those while out on a shoot. Not big enough to add too much weight like a v-mount, but still provide a solid amount of hours. I haven't done any testing on how long it would power the camera, but I'm guessing a Sony (or knockoff) NP-F770 or above would power the camera for a pretty substantial amount of time.
 
adamrahn said:
What about an NPF battery plate/adapter into a dummy A7s battery? I like the idea of power banks but I have a bunch of NP-F batteries laying around and am in the process of rigging my A7sii up with an adapter so I can just use those while out on a shoot. Not big enough to add too much weight like a v-mount, but still provide a solid amount of hours. I haven't done any testing on how long it would power the camera, but I'm guessing a Sony (or knockoff) NP-F770 or above would power the camera for a pretty substantial amount of time.
Click to expand...

Yeah that did sound like a good idea. I guess the only thing I couldn't figure out with that would be how to set it up easily for run and gun? With the PowerCore I just put it in a Galaxy phone case and clip it to my belt, or just throw it in my back pocket with a long USB cable plugged into the camera.

After the back to back 4K test I mentioned above, I let the camera sit plugged into the PowerCore for 2 hours without the battery dropping 1 "line." I then filmed some stuff around the apartment for a good half an hour, making the camera work a little more (actually recording and using the IBIS, etc.) When I unplugged the PowerCore to see what percent the single battery was at, it was at 93%! If I had done the same thing with no PowerCore the single battery would have probably been dead at 1 hour. So far so good!
 
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