Godammit I hate the zoom H4's

No one likes throwing away batts

Cost and environment

But in stills when using flash I find I either need to go for chuckaways or use a quantum tubo

The the AC adapter should give a DC input to the zoom I guess

TO me the nightmare is the 15 min interview and the sound cuts at min 14 losing the hole file ???

mix that with your need to shoot cutaways to overcome the 12 min on the cam it all turns to being a bit of a HeadF&ck if you lose sound and vision !

Losing vision is actually not as bad

so what the voltage of the DC in?

S
 
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I always use the power cord when possible, and especially when providing phantom power to a mic.

From what i can tell without phantom power you can easily last a few hours, not sure what you guys work flow is.

I always carry an extra 2 or 3 sets of batteries to a shoot anyway.
 
do people who use rechargeable batteries use high quality batteries such as eneloops or imedions? If you use batteries like energizers or duracell rechargeables, you're just asking for trouble. They barely power toys for more than a few weeks before they lose their capacity.
Also if you are recharging heaps of batteries all the time, you'll want a "smart" recharger such as the maha powerex chargers. They make a huge difference in the life and reliability of your nimh batteries.
 
Drew Ott said:
There is an AC adapter that comes with it.

I recommend somebody actually tests how long it takes for the H4n to turn off on you, starting with fresh batteries. My mention of 10 minutes was how long it took for the indicator to get to its last notch. It's possible that the last battery notch (on the LCD) lasts much longer than the others.
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jonE5 said:
I always use the power cord when possible, and especially when providing phantom power to a mic.

From what i can tell without phantom power you can easily last a few hours, not sure what you guys work flow is.

I always carry an extra 2 or 3 sets of batteries to a shoot anyway.
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Normally on long shoots I do use a power cord which is what I meant earlier when I said 'shooting with a tether', well two tethers ! One each for 7D and zoom h4.
On this particular shoot I decided to risk it with 12 AA rechargeables but it was not enough.

For phantom power I draw from a sound devices MM1 preamp. Zoom H4 only records and once cmos sensors move away from DSLR's my zoom h4 goes to ebay. :)

Drew I think youmight be right, the last notch did seem to last for quite a while. (we went all the way to shut off a few times)

bimdas said:
do people who use rechargeable batteries use high quality batteries such as eneloops or imedions? If you use batteries like energizers or duracell rechargeables, you're just asking for trouble. They barely power toys for more than a few weeks before they lose their capacity.
Also if you are recharging heaps of batteries all the time, you'll want a "smart" recharger such as the maha powerex chargers. They make a huge difference in the life and reliability of your nimh batteries.
Click to expand...

great advice in there, thanks!
 
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Drew Ott said:
There is an AC adapter that comes with it.

I recommend somebody actually tests how long it takes for the H4n to turn off on you, starting with fresh batteries. My mention of 10 minutes was how long it took for the indicator to get to its last notch. It's possible that the last battery notch (on the LCD) lasts much longer than the others.
Click to expand...

The problem with that is that if I'm using phantom power (which I pretty much always am) the preamps will get noisier as the batteries get closer to the end of their charge - at least that's what I've found.

I swap out my batteries once I'm past the halfway mark on the battery indicator.
And, unfortunately, I'm using disposable batteries - rechargeables just don't cut it.

That said, I definitely use the AC adapter whenever it's feasible.
 
Luis Caffesse said:
The problem with that is that if I'm using phantom power (which I pretty much always am) the preamps will get noisier as the batteries get closer to the end of their charge - at least that's what I've found.

I swap out my batteries once I'm past the halfway mark on the battery indicator.
And, unfortunately, I'm using disposable batteries - rechargeables just don't cut it.

That said, I definitely use the AC adapter whenever it's feasible.
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Hi Luis, looks like we posted at the same time. Hey have you tried a denecke? It will add in phantom to your setup and its fairly inexpensive. Let me just dig around for a link ...
 
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there is no quaility rechargeable batterys ,that was your trouble . they will never keep up in any machine that uses alot of power. i think you put way to much faith in the rechargeable batterys.
 
jetaddiction@mac.com said:
there is no quaility rechargeable batterys ,that was your trouble . they will never keep up in any machine that uses alot of power. i think you put way to much faith in the rechargeable batterys.
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just do a simple google search on them and you'll find hundreds of photographers use these batteries for their high powered flashes.
the eneloops and imedions have the advantage of holding their charge like a normal battery so they only lose around 15% or so after a year of non-use. Good for on the go batteries. This is at the expense of capacity but if you want capacity the maha powerex 2700mah are well regarded. Energizer and duracell are all rubbish compared to these japanese batteries.
 
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I don't know what's wrong with your Zoom H4 units (not H4n right?), but when I've used my H4n I've lasted on a Duracell battery pack from Costco for an entire three day shoot. Granted, I alternated between AC adapter and battery power throughout the shoot but still the Zoom kept going fine, requiring regular battery changes as the meter got low, and I still had batteries left over after.

Now, you want to talk about a battery hog, our Fostex unit drained like crazy and the production even had to dip into my stash of batteries at one point.

Is it the age of the units themselves? Do the transistors or whatever get leaky over time or something? I just can't see how some Zoom H4/H4n units can't last more than ten minutes and others can go for almost a half an hour, and, in my case, half a day.

P.S. I don't bother recharging batteries myself, they've just never worked right for anything in my experience. Places like Costco and Home Depot just have them for sale all the time and it just doesn't pay not to get another pack.
 
Well regardless of the length of time the charges hold, the fact remains that if you are using the H4n as a tool, just like anything else, you need to know it's limitations and take them into account when using them.
What I do know is that the battery issue is pretty much the only issue I've had with it. And if I have to use a crap load of batts and monitor every take ( like I do anyway )or tether in to get the quality of audio that I'm getting with the h4n, then that's not a bad trade off in my eyes.
 
I use ikea batteries in my sennheiser g2's, the zoom h4 eats those puppies in a hot minute. so i use the info lithiums from energizer. did a 2 day shoot in 20 degree temps, both 10-12 hour days and went through 6 info lith batts. i did have a mixer in front of it, so that i didn't need phantom out of the zoom. but yeah, def get some info lithium batts.
 
I have eneloop on my steadicam pilot - always flat when I pull them out of the cupboard

Any way this AC adapter must surely be a 240VAC to XX V DC - 6 or 12 maybe

Therefore one could run it of V lock or something with some welly no?

Seems like there is a big difference between Phantom Power and not for drain time (Intedn to use with lavs and phantom pwered mic)


S
 
The Zoom is nothing...at least it's draining 2 batteries really fast....I've done some work with the Tascam HD-P2 and you're draining 8 batteries in about the same amount of time.

Anyway I always use regular duracell coppertops and they work pretty well....duracell is a great brand they really do last longer than energizer, etc.
 
On my first job with the H4N I was crippled by how fast the batteries drained. I was shooting days of interviews with phantom power. I soon learned that the quality of battery is everything. I only use the duracell heavy duty batteries now. I was shooting in Hong Kong and discovered quickly that 95% of all the batteries there were complete junk - no matter what they said on the packet.

Does the unit come with a power adapter? Weirdly I can't remember if I had one with mine.
 
jshaw300 said:
I only use the duracell heavy duty batteries now. I was shooting in Hong Kong and discovered quickly that 95% of all the batteries there were complete junk - no matter what they said on the packet.

Does the unit come with a power adapter? Weirdly I can't remember if I had one with mine.
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same here ....Duracell all the way...and an AC adapter was included when I bought mine
 
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