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How to Increase Your DSLR Battery Life to 9 Hours

Chris Gampat
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11/03/2014
2 Mins read

Last Updated on 11/03/2014 by Chris Gampat

Sigma 85mm F/1.4 on a Canon Rebel XT
Sigma 85mm F/1.4 on a Canon Rebel XT

While DSLR battery is overall still ahead of mirrorless camera battery life, there are tweaks that you can do to make it last even longer. But this time around, we’re not talking about tweaking the LCD screen settings or anything like that. Photographer Chris Winter came up with a cool hack involving an external battery that mounts into the hot shoe and fools the camera completely.

In the video below, he explains how he used a DC coupler to trick the camera into thinking that it was plugged into a battery or power source of some sort. With that in mind, he hooked the camera up to an external battery that provided power via that type of terminal. What he found in real life use is significantly extended battery life.

Granted, at the same time he put a giant battery around the size of a portable hard drive on top of the camera. Another option would be to get a battery grip (many third parties make them) that stores two batteries. If you don’t mind having a giant battery on top of your camera though, then this shouldn’t be a major problem at all. Just remember to get arms for the camera to allow you to mount other accessories.

A solution like this is best for DSLR videographers over photographers unless you’re using the Live View LCD screen. Overall, it’s an excellent solution for photographers shooting a timelapse.

Chris’s video on How to Increase Your DSLR Battery Life is after the jump.

battery battery life camera chris winter dslr rebel
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.