UPDATE: Sept. 3, 2015 – see bottom of this page.
If you own a GoPro camera then you probably agree that the internal battery is arguably the weakest link in the camera system. Specifically, your operation time is limited to 60-90 min max, and dramatically less so if you’re using wifi and the LCD on the Hero 4 Silver.
This is particularly problematic for extended time lapses since it binds you being near the camera physically for battery changes. External USB battery packs work well in this case, but then you’ve got exposed ports and will need to weather-proof the entire set-up, like this:
The above set-up works very well, by the way, with the exception of the water drops on the lens at the end of this particular shoot. :-/
Enter the Limefuel battery… a project I funded on Kickstarter back in March. This extended battery promises to deliver 3x the capacity of the standard GoPro battery, all while sitting fully enclosed in the waterproof case (you receive a larger camera back/enclosure to accommodate the larger physical dimensions of the Limefuel Epic). Mine arrived today with the first wave of deliveries to backers. It’s going through its first charge now… (photo below) – and time will tell how it performs and holds its own… check back here for an update and mini-review.
UPDATE: September 3, 2015
Before heading off to work yesterday I quickly rigged up the GoPro on the side of our house, with the Limefuel EPIC fully charged, in order to do a quick and dirty test of the capacity of the battery. I ran a time-lapse all day while I was away, until both the Limefuel battery and the internal battery were depleted and the camera shut off. The results are in:
Duration of time-lapse was a very impressive 9 hours and 50 minutes on battery power.
GoPro Settings:
– 1 pic every 5 seconds
– Protunes ON
– WIFI ON
– 7 MP / wide
– Hero 4 Silver
– internal goPro battery was also full at beginning
By turning off the wifi I should be able to squeeze a bit more time out of it, but almost 10 hours is already pretty fantastic. This is exactly what I was hoping to receive when I backed the battery on Kickstarter. In you’re interested in getting one, you can now [amazon_link id=”B00SCE6ZG4″ target=”_blank” ]purchase them on Amazon[/amazon_link] (advertiser link). There are different models for various GoPro cameras, so make sure you check compatibility with your camera.
BTW, here’s the bare-bones time-lapse (sorry no audio on this one).
Advertiser link:
[amazon_image id=”B00SCE6ZG4″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Limefuel Epic[/amazon_image]
