Every professional photographer knows the importance of backup gear. At least two cameras, two flashes, two lenses, etc. And I submit that most professionals have way more gear than that. However, the other night as we were preparing for a Wedding a thought came to me.
Let’s set a scenario right quick: It’s Friday night, 5PM. You’re getting your equipment together for tomorrow’s Wedding in which you need to arrive at 9AM. You’ve cleaned your lenses, formatted your CF cards, verified time and location, and are working on charging batteries. You take the batteries out of your cameras and insert one of them into its charger….. and nothing happens. You chuckle to yourself as you remember you need to turn on the power-strip that the charger is connected to… except.. it’s already on. Perplexed, you switch batteries on the charger with no avail. You come to the realization that your battery charger is no longer working. You do have a back-up, right?
Now.. if you’ve purchased two similar cameras at retail, then you most likely have two identical chargers… regardless of the brand. I chose not to sell my extra chargers because it made my task of charging all the batteries that much simpler. But as I was looking at the charging table we have set up at the studio – I thought about how problematic it could be to not be able to charge batteries the night before a wedding or big event.
Fortunately, many cameras that accept battery grips have AA battery attachments that can be used to power the cameras. But, that assumes that you know where that attachment is. However, full body professional cameras rely on their brand specific batteries for power with no other (easy) alternatives.
I’ve attached an iPhone photo of my charging station that I’ve temporarily made for our studio. Since we’re still settling in after a big move – this will be a little more permanent as soon as I find the appropriate place for it. Until then – you can see the redundancy we have in battery charging, which allows us to recover from a problem should one ever occur.
One final note, we keep our chargers unplugged when not in use. This saves on the minuscule bits of power they use when not actively charging – and also helps to prevent any stray power surges from wiping out our entire collection of chargers.
It may not seem important at first and I’m sure it doesn’t happen often – but small bits of preventative action can save you loads of stress down the road.
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I have spare batteries for my camera body, but not a spare charger. Hmm. Like you, I don’t keep them plugged in unless in use.
However, I do have a different type of backup – at least 3 other photographers nearby that I know would help me out in a pinch and let me use their charger. The power of networking in your local area!
I think
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I think I’ll order a spare charger too – if I was at a destination shoot, I might not have the luxury of a network to rely on!
I see you are using Maha Powerex chargers, I just upgraded myself today. The stock charger I was using only charged until one battery was full, which always left me with some batteries not fully charged. Nice to see a post from you Matt.