Trifter

First. Know how long it will be until you can charge your batteries again. Know if it will be four hours or four days. This will affect how you use your gear and help you implement the strategies below to keep your gear charged.

The first solution battery problems, be them for a camera, phone, gameboy or whatever, is to buy extras. Buying extra batteries is many times cheaper than you think. I have four batteries for my DSLR camera, 1 original and 3 Chinese made knock offs. I bought these knock off batteries on ebay for a fraction of the price of a manufacturers price. If you know your trip will involve days without being near a power supply (like a recent trip hiking in Peru) then buy extra batteries before you go. This will save you the frustration of not having juice for your camera or having to choose when to use it because of battery drainage.

To conserve your batteries keep the following in mind; the brighter and bigger your screen, the more juice it will take. Turn the viewfinder off on your camera, turn the screen brightness down and keep the photo browsing to a minimum until you return to a power supply. This may seem simple enough but resist the temptation to look at or show off your photos until you know you’ll have enough juice for them to last the trip.

One way to keep batteries charged is to buy a solar powered charger. Solar powered chargers are getting small and extremely portable. I’ve used one when hiking for multiple days on end with a camera. The advantage of a solar powered charger is you can attach it to your backpack and keep hiking and within 4-6 hours you’ll have a battery full of juice. A few things to take into consideration when using a solar powered charger; they usually only charge around 80% and make sure it has a indicator light to show that it’s charging. Also keep in mind that if you’re charging one battery on your backpack all day, you’ll need another if you want to use during that time.

Cold kills batteries. When your batteries are cold, they can be drained up to 50% just sitting in your bag. One method I’ve used when camping on super cold nights is to break open a few hand warmers or keeping batteries in my sleeping bag to keep them warm. Find creative ways to keep your batteries warm, never leave them out all night or they will be drained when you want to use them in the morning.

If your batteries are dead and you’re using them for a camera, don’t fear! One trick to give a dead battery enough life to take a shot is remove it from the camera, hold it in between your hands and warm it up, pop it in the camera and shoot. This trick will allow you just enough time to put the battery in and for the shutter to release then die again. I was at Machu Picchu and couldn’t return, so I had no other option and shot over 30 pictures on a “dead” battery.

Hopefully these tips will keep you juiced for the road so you don’t end up in a situation when you desperately need your battery to work. Just make sure and keep your batteries warm, know when you’ll be by a power supply, have enough batteries, find ways to charge them and “budget” their time.