Car/Solar chargers for Canon EOS 50D batteries??

Hello,
Not sure if this is the right place for this question but if not can someone please tell me where to post this.

I'm taking a 3 week driving/photography trip this summer to Arizona and Colorado and I'll be staying for 4 consecutive nights in the campgrounds doing tent camping at the South Rim and North Rim of the Grand Canyon and therefore will not have a way to charge up my batteries for my 50D. I will be traveling with 2 regular Canon chargers and 12 batteries. I'm now becoming concerned that with as much as I plan on shooting at the Grand Canyon that 4 nights in a row in a campground with no electricity is going to cause a problem.

Someone told me that there are special car chargers/adapters that you can plug into the cigarette lighters opening that will let you charge just about anything, problem is that I have a Toyota Prius and when the car is not actually on, nothing will charge through those outlets, it's not like other regular cars that the car battery still has power when the car is turned off. So seeing that my car will be shut off all day long while we are walking around the Canyon and taking photos and then again turned off at night when I am sleeping there is not really going to be anyway for me to charge my camera batteries with such an adapter.

Someone else mentioned they heard about solar chargers and I don't know anything about those either.

Has anyone had any experiences when you were out shooting like that and were in an area for several nights with no electricity how you managed. I know that 12 batteries will probably not last me 4 days.

I have only had my 50D for a month now so I don't have enough time shooting with it to know just how long those batteries will last on a full charge. Prior to this I was using a Digital Rebel 300d and it did not suck the battery life out as much as I heard the 50D is going to use.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I might have to end up canceling the campground reservations for the North Rim and maybe find a place with electricity for those 2 nights I plan on being there, but seeing that my daughter and I will be on the road for 3 full weeks I was hoping to get some cheap accommodations in for the few nights we will be at the Canyon.

Check out this site.http://goalzero.com

On the other end of the price spectrum I found a DuraCell branded charger at Target for around $10.00
That comes with both AC and DC Car charge cables and boasts universal fit for digital camera batteries.
I bought a cheapo Nikon DSLR(yeah I know) to keep in the truck and it had no charger with it.
So far I am using it to charge the Nikon and Canon 40D batteries just fine.
Don't know if it will do 50D batteries but for the price it is certainly worth a look.
Ed

Plummet wrote in post #14014871
Check out this site.http://goalzero.com

I saw this item at my local Costco the other day...

mpadula wrote in post #14014585
I'm taking a 3 week driving/photography trip this summer to Arizona and Colorado and I'll be staying for 4 consecutive nights in the campgrounds doing tent camping at the South Rim and North Rim of the Grand Canyon and therefore will not have a way to charge up my batteries for my 50D. I will be traveling with 2 regular Canon chargers and 12 batteries. I'm now becoming concerned that with as much as I plan on shooting at the Grand Canyon that 4 nights in a row in a campground with no electricity is going to cause a problem.

I believe there was electricity at the KOA camp site at the Grand Canyon when my family stayed there a few years ago. Reserve a site there with electricity and take a long extension cord to run into your tent at night through a small opening and charge your batteries at night. That's what I typically do when I'm tent camping.

Did you say you are going with 12 camera batteries? You will have enough juice for shooting a month straight.

This should provide some insight on solar charging a Bp-511

http://www.modernoutpo​st.com …Canon_bp-511_battery.html

Red Tie Photography wrote in post #14016791
Did you say you are going with 12 camera batteries? You will have enough juice for shooting a month straight.

Really?? Yes, I have 12 of them, I had 6 when I got my 300d and then when I bought the 50d it came with 6 as well and they are the same battery, so now I have 12, I just did not know if that would last me at least 4 days straight. Now I don't know exactly how old all of them are because I bought both the 300d used as well as the 50d but I know that 2 of the batteries that came with the 50d were brand new.

If you say this will last me a month then I think I will not worry about getting a car adapter/charger then. I will just make sure that before I head up to the South Rim that all 12 batteries are fully charged and I'll be good to go!!

Thanks so much for everyone and all the suggestions as well!!

what about hooking up an extra cigarette lighter socket to the battery

We occasionally sell solar charging setups for Grand Canyon river runners and the like, where there will be no power available for perhaps days or even 2-3 weeks at a time. The big problem with using solar panels direct to the battery is that the output voltage of panels can vary so much, and can damage equipment. The only really safe way is to use a solar panel to charge a standard 12 volt battery and then use a specific adaptor for 12 volt to your equipment.

That does not make for a system that you can carry around, as the 12 volt battery alone can weight 6 to 15 pounds.