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A good solution shooting with Red Epic on multi day big mountain ski touring project?

E

Eirik Nicolai Heim

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Hi,

I have an Red Epic and currently own enough batteries and disks to operate in studios or a day out.

But now, I have got an opportunity to shoot a famous swedish snowboarder and some other good freeriders on a multi day ski tour project. Looks like we are going to be based in a hut, and we will have snow mobiles as transportation to the huts.

What is the best solution if I want to recharge my batteries and bring a laptop to offload the disks? Solar power? Diesel aggregate? And how big does the aggregate have to be (effect?)? I will have to have the opportunity to keep the macbook powered up and recharge the batteries every second day.

As I said, I can transport the stuff with snow mobiles to the basecamp.

Anyone with an experience such as this?
 
Solar stuff from Goal Zero are good but you need sun. Its good for laptop and small stuff, not sure how about the red bricks or redvolts... If you are from Europe send me a PM and Ill give you a good contact from their european office.
The small and not so loud geneartors are from Honda that I used for different stuff. Honda eu 1000 should be enough probably for charging batteries,... but check online a bit.
 
Also if you have an insulated box/for drinks you can put a few hand warmers in there and store the batteries to keep them from getting cold out on the Mt. and this will help give you longer batt times.
Maybe make plans for someone to take a shipment of bricks back down the Mt. for charging and then bring them back up the next day.
 
Definite plus one on keeping the batteries warm, I did a trek through the Inca Trails for a docu and the temperature drop at night really affected the batteries.
I ended up sleeping with the batteries in my sleeping bag with me.
Having done similar jobs, I have always used a voltaic solar charger for the macbook and had self powered drives and rented in enough batteries to cover me for the extra days. (one man crew)
30kg pack was a killer at altitude.

Either way, sounds like an amazing job, you will have a great time.
 
Thank you for great tips. I will check out both the solar power and aggregate solution you are mentioning. I am from Europe yes, Norway.

Have been out in the cold before both in desserts and out in the mt. during winter time, and I am always thinking about how to keep the batteries as warm as possible. But this is first time out with Red on multiday trip such as this. I think I will just have to test it out before we go. Really looking forward to this job, since my main background is freeriding, climbing and surfing, and most of my spare time is spent in the mt.
 
I have shot on Everest, the Karakoram, and the South Pole, though all of that was before my Epic. Now I shoot nature, still working outside, but in less deadly settings. (except for the occasional animal attack). Keep batteries as warm as you can, your spare inside your jacket. In the US you can buy non rechargeable Lithium batteries from Stuart Cody that last for days. It's environmentally horrible, but worked well on long expeditions. Current regulations make it harder to fly with those, not sure if they are available in Europe. If you have a base camp with vehicle access, its easy. A new generation of small generators is quite inexpensive and works perfectly. Just did a month in the African bush with one of those little Hondas, about $500. Solar is fine for your computer, but you would need a big array for bricks. Might be able to do Red volts on solar.
 
Solar power and swedish winter do not fly well together. I sugest you bring enough power / batteries / chargers so that is no worry. The batteries goes like flies when in cold. So if you can I would get a inverter for car / 12V to charge from and keep batteries warm. Cold batteries are pretty much dead, or only last for a fraction of the time of normal. I would sugest to use a bigger snowmobile, like a "groomer" http://www.protectadks.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/SnowmobileGroomer-5.gif

and then you got both heating and electricity. Another trick mentioned here is ice chest for battery storage. That works well, even better if you pack it with many of those "chemical glow heaters" As a kid I did a lot of snowboarding movies and those heaters works really well and does not cost much.

Another thing would be to put a bat charger inside a ice chest together with a 12v inverter and then let the motor of the snowmobile stand and idle and charge from it inside the "ice chest heating box".

If wanted we got, Redvolts, XL's Quad, Quad charger, travel chargers etc in stockholm if you want to rent. Also inverter that works on the car cigarette socket.
 
Thank you all for your great tips.

I am checking out the possibility to rent/buy one of those Honda 10i. I do not think I can get hold on any bigger snow mobiles. I am not the man planning the trip, I just got an invitation and a film job that does not pay very well, but it is a very cool job and I think the movie has a good potential to become great marketing for myself. I am talking the people behind to get hold off one of those aggregates.

The budget is very low, but thank you for letting me know that I can rent from you, and I will maybe do that at a later stage.
 
Another thing to keep in mind how the weather affects the battery life of your bricks

I use 3rd party v mounts (batteries4broadcast) and havent shot much in the snow/extreme cold, but i've had issues with Dslr batts dying on me in the passed (lose charge quickly) and other people tell me their batts (bricks) don't last as long in the cold either
 
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