Backcountry Battery System ???

C

c3hammer

Well-known member
Most all my work is outdoors in the backcountry and I'm looking into building a light weight lighting kit. I figured I should start with the battery system first. I'd like to build a kit consisting of a couple panels, some sort of china ball and a fresnel.

What battery system might be the best place to start with here? Any solar charging systems besides Goal Zero you might know of?

Cheers,
Pete
 
Backcountry like meaning you'll have to carry all this stuff for a couple miles? I would just get lite ribbon cards, some tape, and a solar panel battery charger. They pack an amazing amount of punch, are extremely lightweight, and pull very little power. The lite panel cards run for quite a while just off a bunch of AA's. It does depend on how much you'll be shooting though.

I'd start with the fixture and then figure out how you're going to power it. Might be an easier route.
 
Thanks for the replies. I often film miles from the road. This kit will need to be as light as possible for sure.

What I'm trying to stay away from here is having three or four different battery systems to do all the lights I was hoping to put together eventually.

This is a sample of the latest project I filmed. This was with two or three 35 watt LED panels. They had v-plate battery attachments and were quite expensive at around $2000 each to buy. We just rented them for this shoot, but they were way way way too heavy at around 25 lbs each.
https://vimeo.com/84821987

@RyanT, I'm not familiar with what a lite ribbon card and tape are. I've seen LED ribbon, but not sure how to use it to film night, dawn and dusk type scenes. Any links that show how to do that sort of thing?

Cheers,
Pete
 
http://store.litegear.com/product_p/lrp-vho120-x6-hy-0.25m.htm

Are you used to carrying stands for each of your fixtures? How planned are the things you're shooting? If you can stage whatever you're shooting to your convenience, what I was going to say was get some of these cards with battery packs, then just tape them to whatever objects you can find. Seeing your video it seems like its a bit more run n gun. They're so lightweight that you can tape them to anything, and that would make it so you don't have to lug around any stands.

I wish they had photometrics, but these things are extremely punchy. If you went this route, I suggest you give them a call and talk to them a bit. There are a lot of little pieces that don't make sense until you use one. They'll be able to tell you just what you need.
 
Yeah Ryan !!! That looks nearly perfect.

I'll have to check with them tomorrow and see what high capacity battery options might be compatible. I'll bet I could use one of those shorter ones rolled into a tube inside a china ball on a jib pole quite easily. Now I just need a Fresnel that's compatible with the same battery's and I'd be set.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers,
Pete
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top