Solar charging options

I am planning to walk some of the South West coast path later this year and would like to take my D7100 with me. I have one spare battery but don't think that will be enough to last up to two weeks. I therefore need someway of charging my batteries. We might be able to sneakily plug in the mains charger while we have dinner at a pub, or at a campsite, but I don't want to rely on these options. I'm hoping that there is some way of connecting my camera battery to some form of renewable energy supply. I suppose the options are: 1 - Solar, 2 - Wind, 3 - Hydrogen cell. SO my questions are: Does anyone in the UK have experience of charging camera batteries while away from mains supply? What are the available options? Can you recommend a product that will also enable me to charge my Nokia Lumia phone? Thanks

It's been a long time since I visited this issue so perhaps there have been some decent advancements. Off the top of my head you can do something like a Solio Solar charger. That uses the sun to charge an onboard battery pack (not so great in mAh). You would then plug your device whether it be phone or camera into its USB port to start pulling a charge.

Another thing I've used is an iGo AA charger. That takes 2 AA batteries and with a specific tip you plug that device straight into your device that you need charged.

Lastly, I've used Brunton Solar charger that will charge up AA batteries for you and you could conceivably use those in a camera grip. I think they have newer models that charge itself and you can plug a USB into it for charging.

Like I said, it's been a long time since I've used one so hopefully the tech has gotten much better and with more capacity.

Of the 3, the iGo was the smallest but did not have a renewable source. You drained your AA batteries to charge what you wanted. I hope that helps.

edit: Just looking into them, I don't think they even have the iGo that I spoke of. The company is still around with options but not the one I mentioned. Sorry

Methinks the OP wants to charge the battery for his D7100, not his cell phone or AAs.

I do have a solar charger but it is just for USB so that really does not help with the D7100 battery. There are 12 volts chargers for the D7100 batteries and I have one somewhere that I used to use when traveling so I could recharge my battery. I used it on my D3100. Now I have two bodies that use the same battery and I have 5 batteries. Would be interested to see what you come up with.

My bad, for some reason I thought you could plug up the D7100 body to a USB cable and it would charge your battery.

PapaST said:

My bad, for some reason I thought you could plug up the D7100 body to a USB cable and it would charge your battery.

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I wish you could. As far as I know there is not way to charge the battery in the camera. You must remove it from the camera to charge.

I would send Goal Zero an email, then explain what you have and need to do. I am sure they can tell you how to make this work.

Like above. You will most likely need a 12v car charger, and a portable solar pack,

The solar pack you will get from a caravan shop, maplins or eBay. Depending on the size of the solar pack will determine the time to charge.

Something like this,
13W Solar Briefcase | Maplin

Thanks for the suggestions. Did I mention that I was walking for up to two weeks and therefore need to carry all this gear with me? Maybe a number of precharged batteries is the better option

Looking at all of the recharging options and it I reckon that the best solution for your D7100 would be to purchase a DTSE MB-D15 battery pack (DTSE MB-D15 | eBay) which will allow to Nikon batteries (one in camera, one in grip) to be loaded - whilst also having a AA carrier thus permitting use of NimH batteries en-route. This would work out a little cheaper than buying another genuine Nikon EN-EL15 battery, which would be the best solution for weight and space saving.
So far as I can see, using items such as Wind-up USB Power Charger for DV Mobile Phone Mp4 Generator Handle Pocket UK New | eBay would be far too troublesome.

Good luck on your trip - show us the photos when you get back

Carl_Oxford_UK said:

I am planning to walk some of the South West coast path later this year and would like to take my D7100 with me. I have one spare battery but don't think that will be enough to last up to two weeks. I therefore need someway of charging my batteries. We might be able to sneakily plug in the mains charger while we have dinner at a pub, or at a campsite, but I don't want to rely on these options. I'm hoping that there is some way of connecting my camera battery to some form of renewable energy supply. I suppose the options are: 1 - Solar, 2 - Wind, 3 - Hydrogen cell. SO my questions are: Does anyone in the UK have experience of charging camera batteries while away from mains supply? What are the available options? Can you recommend a product that will also enable me to charge my Nokia Lumia phone? Thanks

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I would go the extra battery route. If you had 4 fully charged batteries, that should easily last you 2 weeks; And they're small.
Maybe go for the wasabi's. Amazon.com : Wasabi Power Battery (2-Pack) and Charger for Nikon EN-EL15 and Nikon 1 V1, D600, D610, D800, D800E, D810, D7000, D7100 : Digital Camera Batteries : Camera & Photo

I'd be surprised if you need more than 2 fully charged batteries. The D7100 is very good on battery usage.