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Quick Tip: How to never lose track of charged & discharged batteries again

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Keeping track of batteries is a pain. We have to change them so much more often in our cameras now. Especially since the advent of live view LCDs and video. So, most of us keep a well stocked supply of spares, particularly with small juice suckers like action cameras. But when you go out to shoot, how do you keep track of which are charged and which are depleted?

One option is to keep separate sections of a bag, or even separate bags for each. But things can often get mixed up easily. You could just write numbers on them and just use them sequentially, but that’s easy to lose track of. Here’s a solution from Knoptop that’s simple and pretty effective, just using some small rubber bands.

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Stanford boffins develop Lithium Ion battery with built in fire extinguisher

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Lithium based batteries power a lot of stuff these days. Phones, cameras, laptops, and even vehicles. There’s a lot of “best practise” advice out there when dealing with Li-Ion and Li-Po batteries, but it’s not common knowledge. Most consumers don’t know how to look after their batteries. Or that there even are suggested ways to use, store and charge batteries. They just assume technology will take care of it all for them. Many times it will, unless you get unlucky with cheap or counterfeit batteries.

Problems aren’t always the consumer’s fault, though. Sometimes manufacturers screw up. Given the issues with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, it’s clear that Li-Ion and LiPo batteries aren’t perfect. Now, we’re a step closer to getting a little more perfection out of them. Or, at least make them a little less explosive. Researchers at Stanford University have developed a solution for Li-ion batteries to self-extinguish in the event of thermal runaway.

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Extend your camera’s battery life 9 times for only $40

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A while ago, we shared a practical solution for extending a Sony camera battery life with a power bank. If this is something you care about, the guys from The Film Look bring you an even cheaper way of doing it with big NPF Sony batteries. If you shoot film with a DSLR or a mirrorless camera, you should definitely have a look.

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Power your camera for days on a battery that takes seconds to charge

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Now this is an idea I think we can all get behind. Anything that keeps us charged faster and for longer while out shooting can’t be bad. So, imagine being able to go out and shoot as much as you want for as long as you want without having to worry about your battery life at all. And if it does run out, you can recharge it in just a few seconds.

Such batteries are the vision of scientists at the Univercity of Central Florida, using supercapacitors. Supercapacitors store more energy and can be recharged more than 30,000 times without degrading. Using phones a a comparison, most phone batteries tend to last only around 1,500 charges before severe degradation kicks in. This is why your 3 year old iPhone barely lasts til lunch despite charging overnight.

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7 Tips to make your camera’s battery last longer

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With the number of extra gadgets and doohickies built into our cameras these days, battery life is diminishing. Larger sensors, faster processors, more memory, built in WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS all drain our batteries faster than they used to. Keeping spare batteries on you is always a good idea when you’re out with your camera. Even with spare batteries, though, a long day or vacation without electricity can easily drain them all.

So, what can we do? This video from SLR Lounge talks about 7 different ways we can bring our camera’s energy consumption down. For a short day out, or a quick project, most of these probably wouldn’t even occur to us. But some seem surprisingly obvious.

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Tether Tools unveils hot-swappable Case Relay system for uninterrupted power to your camera

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Tether Tools has announced the Case Relay system, a camera attachment that they claim to be the world’s first device that will allow you to provide uninterrupted power to your camera using a standard wall outlet or USB battery pack, such as the ones you use to charge up your smartphone.[Read More…]

SUPERcase gives your GoPro 512GB of storage and 6 extra hours of battery life

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GoPro cameras are impressive in their own right, but they’re far from a complete video solution. Here to change that is SUPERcase, an all-in-one device from Austin-based startup Si-Jex that not only protects your GoPro camera but provides more storage, power and protection.[Read More…]

Black Magic Camera Bursts Into Flames, Immediate Suspect is The Internal Battery

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Producer Forest Gibson was shooting a kickstarter campaign using a Black Magic 2.5K when the camera suddenly burst into flames. The crew immediatly left the location, but then came back using dump towels as (somewhat of ) protection.

http://youtu.be/eMbIhCNGYnE

Needles to say that the camera was toasted and beyond use. Sadly so was the SSD drive containing the footage shot that day.

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This Battery Recycling Tip Can Save Your Home (And Possibly Your Life)

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9V batteries are not the most common battery form factor in photography, yet they are still being used in some remote triggers and RC related gadgets (like remote microphones). And of course for igniting steel wool.

While we generally recommend recycling batteries, you should watch that movie before recycling a single 9 volts battery.It shares the story of Dave from Kids and Character. Dave house went of fire when he placed an exposed 9V battery in a recycling bag and the contacts shorted. This led to the battery waring up and eventually catching fire which burnt down the house.

Dave’s tip is simple: gaffer tape the battery terminals before sending it on its last way. It will keep the contacts from shorting.

Thanks for the heads up Robert.[Read More…]

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