An External Canon Battery That Lasts 9 Times Longer
Apr 29, 2014
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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If you’ve been doing HD video you know how fast those batteries drain. The standard Canon LP-E6 and LP-E8 are 1,800mAh and 1,120mAh respectively which will shoot video for about an hour.
You can always have some spare batteries to replace the dead ones, but Chris Winter shared a pretty cool external battery hack that uses a 10,000mAh which is roughly 9 times the capacity.
Now, I am not sure if you can actually call off the shelf products a hack, but between the fast that you get so much more usage time and the clever way Chris mounts the battery with Velcro, I thought it is worth sharing.
The trick is to use a Camera Power Coupler DC Dummy Battery Pack by Lanparte and to connect it to an external battery. They come in both an LP-EP6 (for 5D3 5D2 7D 60D) and LP-EP8 (for 550D 600D 650D) flavors for about $30-$40 and replace the Canon battery you usually place in the battery chamber.
To complete the setup, Chris uses a 10,000mAh battery that has an external DC output of 9V which is close enough to the operational voltage of 7.4 that the camera needs.
We shared a similar hack before, only for this one you don’t actually need a sacrificial battery.
[Increase Your DSLR Camera Battery Life To 9 Hours via Chris Winter]
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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29 responses to “An External Canon Battery That Lasts 9 Times Longer”
want to see him shooting with the cam. Not really usable, i guess
I’ll get that video up for you soon Viktor! Thanks for watching.
Cheers
Chris Winter
Matthew-Handy for the ol’ time lapses? :)
I’ll bet you mine lasts longer :D
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202868472169915
LOL-Bet his doesn’t require a 6 man team to get to location… ;)
Absolutely it’s perfect for time lapses. I’ve used this for a couple of multi day time lapses and it only used half of the battery. It’s a real beast of a battery!
Cheers
Chris Winter
I think you could try mounting the battery back to the tripod screw if you are shooting handheld or to tripor/rig if not. I wouldnt want to have that heavy weight up high when shooting video
Great idea Sakari, I’ll look into making a video for that!
Cheers
Chris Winter
Great idea Sakari!
Brandon Madsen
So you can fit 9 hours of HD video on a single SD/CF-Card? Great!
Otherwise there is time to change the batteries, while you change the memory card…
(256 GB card) / (50 Mb/s bitrate) * (1024 MB/GB) * (8 bits/Byte) * ( 1 hour / 3600 seconds) = 11.7 hours of video.
adjust for your own card and camera settings…
(__ GB card ) / (__ Mb/s bitrate) * 2.28 = ___ hours of video
Thanks for doing the math for me mate ;)
Cheers
Chris Winter
Thank you very much! I´m not into videography so I didn´t know which bitrates are used. And 256 GB cards are new to me, too. Wow, should have a look for those. :-D
Hey Martin!
Yeah you really should be able to on a 64gb card (which I use) or a 128gb card (which i dream of). Also if you run Magic Lantern you can easily turn down the mbs to accommodate 9 hours of straight shooting!
All the best
Chris WInter :)
combining ots parts in new ways (as cheaper alternatives to existing solutions) is the best kind of hack! thanks!
Thanks mate! I agree, it’s a super cheap solution when you consider the run time that you get and the portability. Compared to a V-Lock battery which would weigh 5 times more and cost 10 times more :)
All the best
Chris Winter
will it also work with an external ac plug? This is AWESOMEEEEE!!!!
I had trouble believing anything after the “20 minutes” statement. I can’t think of anything I can do with my camera to make the battery only last 20 minutes, not that I’ve tried. But … are the new Rebels’ batteries really that poor?
Hey Will!
Yep for video they really are that poor. Unfortunately they can’t consistenly get any more than 20 consistent minutes at 60fps. Hopefully this can help a few people!
Thanks,
Chris :)
Hey, I hope it helps someone. :-)
My old Rebels didn’t have video (350D and 400D), but the 60D I have now gets at least an hour or two of video, so I assumed the other modern batteries were similar. :-)
For those searching an external battery solution for Nikon cameras there is detailed description from Gunther Wegner. I know it’s in German but I guess you get the idea.
http://gwegner.de/know-how/externe-12v-stromversorgung-fuer-nikon-und-canon-diy/
stop chimping and your battery life will increase dramatically…
So what?
People are doing the same with their hacked Panasonic GH1 and GH2 for ages.
(well before the GH3 and GH4 where in the market.)
Awesome – I was just thinking about how useful it would be to have a bunch of universal high capacity batteries for various components – that Anker unit looks perfect – especially if you are shooting time lapse, there is the camera, dollies, monitoring pc or tablet, cell phone to look at cat pictures while your series is running USB coffee warmer etc. Too bad it doesn’t have a 6v setting to adapt it to use with speedlights.
Chris, wouldn’t it be better to mount the external battery on a flash bracket and leave the hot shoe free to mount a video light?
Hey Chris!
In your post you say to buy the EZO brand external battery but the video clearly shows you using an ANKER battery. Whats the deal?
Is this the right product?
http://www.amazon.ca/EZOPower-High-capacity-Portable-Rechargable–10000mAh/dp/B005XQSN9G/ref=sr_1_10?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1403447864&sr=1-10&keywords=EZOPower+10000mah+external+battery
excuse the canadian amazon.
Does this damage the camera i.e. my 60D runs at 7.4V…so is it safe to run at 9V?
Does anyone make a battery coupler that goes out to USB? Seems like it would be more practical these days with battery packs being all usb.