Camera w/ 6 hr Runtime?
 

Hello,
Maybe this is a shot in the dark... but are there any cameras with a 5-6 hour runtime? I am looking to do a longer ride and take a time-lapse video of it (shoot one frame every 2 seconds or so).

Is anything like that available, or do I just need to suck it up and do a few battery changes?

Cheers,
Jason

I can't imagine how you'd make this work, but since no one else has answered, I'll throw something that probably won't be useful out there. BP-511s are great batteries. I get something like 2,000 exposures on one. The 5D mk II has a video mode, and eats the same long-lasting batteries. Moreover, if you only want to do time-lapse using stills, there are lots of affordable cable releases that will do exactly that, letting you set whatever interval you'd like.

The problems, of course, are in weight, expense, liability, and how you'll mount it.

Now that I've got the ball rolling, maybe somebody will suggest a more cromulent solution?

What camera are you using? Can you extend battery life by turning off LCD, sound, etc.

You might do a little bit of research with the Gopro Camera. It can do interval sequence shot and it looks like they will soon offer a BacPac option that piggy back the camera which can double the 2.5 hrs of battery life giving you 5 hours. That might even be more in the interval shot mode. Not sure when available but I myself is thinking of getting that camera.

See the bottom of this link
http://www.goprocamera.com/index.php...2&productid=29

This would do it --

http://www.hobby-lobby.com/video_camera.htm

And it'll take an external battery easily so you could use it, but it only does 640x480 pictures and that's pretty cruddy.

Really, the GoPro option would work well, and I'll bet it's pretty easy to add an external battery. Still, I wish more cameras had a "just take a picture every X seconds mode" -- it would be very nice for taking pictures from R/C airplanes, for example (which I do from time to time) -- just tape the camera to the plane, tell it to take pictures, and go fly.

(I actually bought a GoPro HD for exactly this purpose. (And taking video of bike rides and the like.) Though it arrived DOA and I had to send it back, so I'm still waiting for it to return so I can actually try it out.)

Edit: I bought my FlyCamOne2 a while back. Now it looks like FlyCamOne3 is out --

http://www.hobby-lobby.com/flycamone3.htm

which may take higher resolution still pictures. Or may not -- they don't give any details on it! (And we don't care about any wireless capabilities for this anyways.)

My current camera is a Canon SD1100 (still camera). I love its "interval mode" (where it creates a video from taking a pic every 1-2 seconds). I haven't actually tested it to see how long it runs, and the manual is sketchy. Based on the little info it does give about battery run-time, I doubt it would last two hours.

Anyway... thanks for the replies. I've looked into the GoPro and a few other cameras, but they didn't seem to be what I wanted. That new GoPro extended battery looks interesting, but may just give up for now. I don't think I'd get $300+ use out of it. Thanks for the replies :)

Actually, the FlyCamOne2 I mentioned earlier does take better still pictures than 640x480.

For example, all the pictures here --

http://flying.frenzied.us/aerial-pho...oug_Sahm_Hill/

were taken with it -- 1280x1024. The EXIF data says --

Camera make : Syntek
Camera model : USB Camera
Resolution : 1280 x 1024
Flash used : No
Focal length : 6.5mm
Exposure time: 0.0010 s (1/1000)
Aperture : f/3.0
ISO equiv. : 100
Whitebalance : Auto
Exposure : program (auto)
Focus range : distant

It's tiny, relatively cheap ($80) and while it won't last six hours by itself, it would be trivial to add an external battery (it exposes the connectors for that, 4 AA's would do it, and I think 2000 mAh ones would give you about six hours extra). As for how long it'll last, it seems to take about 300KB pictures, one every 4 seconds, so that's about 5 MB/minute, or 300 MB/hour or 1800 MB/six hours. Since it will accept up to a 2 GB card, with an external battery it should be able to do 6 hours.

For the pictures above, all I did was tape it to the plane, turn it on, put it into the "picture every four minutes" mode and then flew around.

And if you're looking to make a video of it, 1280x1024 is pretty good resolution anyways -- as wide as 720p, but a bit taller than 720p.

A relative of mine has a similar camera. I think they have a 1000 model. Somethign to think about if you like the camera. Get OEM batteries off Ebay for cheap to extend the battery run time. IIRC you can get around 3 batteries for the price of one Canon replacement battery. Never trust the claims on the batteries tilly ou test and verify the run time yourself and mark on the battery so you know the capacity on each one. I would safely say you can expect about 50-70% of the claimed battery capacity. Those Canon batteries are small and lightweight. 2 spare cells is about the weight of 2 x AA Duracell 2650 NIMH IIRC.

There is hacked firmware version for most Canon cameras which has a lot of options for time lapse shooting: It's called CHDK