Those particular devices have a battery in them, making the combined weight of the unit a fair amount. Also, some of them will not power a standard charger. And of course if you do find a solar power source that could run your camera battery charger, you would need the charger along too, which is more hardware. Be sure to consider just bringing along additional batteries that are fully charged. That worked very well for me on an extended trip away from any charging devices.
Also remember that if you try to use a solar charging system, that can be very difficult if you are on the move during the day. You may find you don't have much time when there is daylight to do any charging.
Can Canon cameras take AA batteries in the vertical grip? If they can, the easiest solution is probably to buy a solar charger for AAs, since there are lots of good chargers available for those, even foldable ones.
Alternatively, buy a Pentax K200D, which uses AA batteries, is weather sealed, very robust and rather cheap now.
Jorgen Udvang wrote:
Can Canon cameras take AA batteries in the vertical grip? If they can, the easiest solution is probably to buy a solar charger for AAs, since there are lots of good chargers available for those, even foldable ones.
Alternatively, buy a Pentax K200D, which uses AA batteries, is weather sealed, very robust and rather cheap now.
Good idea. I'll look into solar AA chargers.
I wanted to leave the grip behind, but this might be the way to go - provided the camera doesn't eat up the AA's too fast. This is something I have not tested.
As for the Pentax... I've sunk enough $ into Canon that I'll stick with them for at least a little while longer!
That one has what you want I think (depends on the canon body) as it has 'Cam Caddy' which looks like it can charge Canons batteries unless you have a 1 series or 5D2/7D in which case you might need to use the non chipped cheap knock offs and put up with not having any battery info.
The AA's is another good idea but in the older bodies the AA's do seem to run out quickly
Brunton makes the best and they can be daisy chained or connected in parallel to get the required voltage and current. be prepared to pay a premium though.
