Olympus 1030sw on multi day trips

Advice
#1

I’ll be going on a 5 day trip on the Rio Grande in Big Bend Nat’l Park, TX in about three weeks and am looking for a solution for keeping my Olympus 1030sw charged.



From searching, I’ve seen a few ideas (http://www.paddling.net/message/showThread.html?fid=advice&tid=1005854) that look promising.



Does anyone else who uses this same model camera have suggestions? Pros/Cons on buying a couple batteries vs going with a solar powered recharger (and if solar, are the right adapters for the charger out there?)?



Thanks,



Ryan

#2

Might not need anything
I took mine on a 4 day trip last September. I brought a spare battery but did not need to use it.

http://good-times.webshots.com/album/567546207NSZFJN



Tommy

#3

I bought extra batteries
for mine on Ebay. The’re off brand. I got two for $8.99 plus shipping. They work just as well as the Olympus battery. Sure beats shelling out $39.00 bucks for one. KK

#4

If you take a lot of photos
you can probably go through a couple of batteries a day. A solar cell charger might not be very convenient and is obviously dependent on conditions. I’d probably buy at least 4 batteries and a reliable way to recharge them.



If you’re only taking a hundred photo’s or so on the trip a couple of batteries will be more than enough.



Also pay attention to the milliamp rating on the off brand batteries. Some are pretty weak compared to the OEM battery.



jim

#5

charge life similar to Pentax?
If charge life is similar to the Pentax Optio’s battery, I have done trips up to 10 days using 2 batteries, and in each case taking a couple of gigabytes of photos and videos in the time.

#6

One caveat on off-brand
I have an old 720, and several years ago I got mad waiting for Plympus to get some batteries in stock. I Googled, bought some off-brand spares and a spare charger for the price of an Oly battery. But the off-brand ones do not fit in the battery compartment as cleanly as the Oly does. And now the adhesive covering is peeling, making insertion and removal even more difficult.



Jim

#7

Thanks
Thanks for the advice thus far…

Tommy- nice pictures! However I think that I do take a lot of pictures and noticed on my last overnight trip, the battery barely lasted two days (http://gallery.me.com/ryanfernandes#100128&bgcolor=black&view=grid&sel=50),



Jim- thanks for the heads up on the milliamp ratings, I didn’t even think to check on that (I found some on ebay)





Ryan