Harsh, isolated locations can make reliable batteries a primary concern.
 

By Buck McNeely
 

Way back in 1990, I built what was then a state-of-the-art Sony Beta SP A/B roll linear editing system. I also bought a Sony BVW 5 Beta SP camcorder with a Fujinon lens.

I was five years into producing my TV program The Outdoorsman with Buck McNeely. We launched it commercially on one TV station in Cape Girardeau, Missouri in 1985. For the first five years, we shot on 3/4” tape using a deck attached via umbilical cable to a Sony M3-A tube camera. I had to hire cameramen with strong backs and weak minds to pack that system into the bush.
 

I was very proud of that new Beta SP camera. Direct from the factory it had a drop in sled on the back that accepted one NP1-A battery. I started shooting in some interesting locations in the early 90s and bought several NP1-As to carry along. We shot in Africa, New Zealand, Russia, Mexico, Argentina, and many other locations worldwide. And we lugged eight of those heavy batteries into the field every day.

It was on an elk hunt in Colorado that I had to rethink my long-term battery/field-power production strategy.

Let me set the stage. It was COLD. Two feet of snow covered the ground. The pines and spruce trees looked like frosting dipped popsicles. (Did I mention it was cold?)
 

I had a guide named Dirk. He was a tough little cowboy type who maybe weighed 120 pounds with rocks in his pocket. That Man could hump those mountains though. We did some serious hiking the first three days. We hiked to ridgelines to glass into valleys looking for elk. We ghosted among stands of aspens scarred with chest high nips in the bark both old and fresh.
 

Elk will chew bark off aspens in snow pack when no other food is available. Millions of aspen trees in the West sport these markings.
 

We spotted a few cows and young rag-horn bulls. No shooters, though. The animals were moving down from the high country into lower elevations looking for food.
 

On day four, we were driving along an old fire road and I just happened to glance up a mountain. Way up the slope I spotted the outline of a dark-bodied elk bull in a snow-packed clearing above a stand of pines.
 

“Stop the truck!” I exclaimed.

We dismounted and I put the binos on the bull. I beheld the biggest elk bull I had ever seen pawing the snow rooting for graze underneath. He was tiny in the binos and just slightly bigger in the cameras viewfinder on 2x extender. I could see what appeared to be a Christmas tree on his head. It was a BIG rack of antlers.
 

“What are you doing today?” Dirk asked.
 

“We are going to get up that mountain, shoot that bull and capture some award winning footage today,” I stated with a big grin.
 

Dirk and I glassed the mountain and crafted a strategy to get up above and behind that bull. We loaded up the camera gear and proceeded to motivate up that mountain. As I closed up the truck I grabbed an extra battery and stuffed it into an inside jacket pocket. Reserve power.
 

After two hours of laborious slogging uphill in two feet of snow, we moved into a pine tree belt overlooking the elk’s last known location. Dirk peeked around a thick blue spruce and turned to me with a big smile.
 

“The bull is facing away from us at 90 yards.” He whispered. “He’s carrying the biggest rack I’ve ever seen.” His eyes were buggin’ out.
 

I turned to my cameraman and whispered to him: “Fire up the camera, zoom out wide, put your left shoulder two feet behind my right shoulder. We are going to ease out together, the camera rolling. You’ll have two seconds to focus and compose the shot. I’ll hold off as long as I can before he gets wise. I may have to shoot quickly so be ready. Get your shot, then I’ll take mine.”
 

He fired up the camera and then… we heard it power off.
 

“Dead battery, the cold sapped it,” he said.
 

I reached into my inner jacket and pulled out a warm battery. We swapped the bad one out, fired up the camera and eased around that tree ready for action. All I saw was snow. No elk. I froze, looking around that opening. It was dead silent, no movement. No elk.
 

“He spooked off.” Dirk muttered off my other shoulder.
 

We walked into the clearing and saw where his tracks had packed the snow during his visit. We also spotted where he jumped and dug in with his hind hooves and started his bolt down the mountain, quartering away from us.
 

We puzzled out what must have happened as we followed his downward trail for several hundred yards. When we swapped out batteries there were a couple clunks in the process. In that high Alpine stillness, that bull heard that unnatural sound in his living room. He didn’t wait or go what’s that noise? He just slipped out the back door, at a run. He was a wise old bull and escaped my freezer that day.
 

A mental image of that big bull is burned into my brain. It recurs at times in dreams, just to remind me of how the dice tumble in life.
 

After that production, I ordered up some new Anton/Bauer batteries and put a gold mount plate on the back of that Beta SP camera. I had lost an opportunity to shoot and film a world-class bull elk due to power failure. I resolved not to let that happen again.
 

Back then, Anton/Bauer had a workhorse battery, the ProPac 14, known affectionately as the “Brick.” I picked up a few of those and their smaller TrimPac batteries. Over the next few years I travelled the world filming in more exotic and remote locations. We shot in Arctic Tundra, sweltering jungles, hot, cold, mountains, deserts and oceans. You name it, we went there. We logged some serious miles with that Beta SP camera and those Anton Bauer batteries. To date I’ve not missed another shot due to power failure.
 

In 2000, we started shooting with the Ikegami Edit Cam. This became my primary camera until we upgraded to HD in 2007. The Ike was a sweet digital camera that recorded on a 90GB hard drive called a "field pack." We also got an upgrade in battery power when Anton/Bauer introduced the Digital DIONIC.
 

This Lithium Ion technology was a major step up in technology from the old lead acid batteries. In the field it lasts longer and is more cold resistant. The DIONIC also charges faster. It’s my opinion it is the dominant field battery in the industry. That statement is based on extensive field performance worldwide over many years.

Today, I shoot with a Panasonic AJ-HDX-900 HD camera (above) and Fujinon HA22x8.7 BERD zoom. I also mount the Marshall LCD651ST field monitor on top, run a Litepanels Micro Pro LED light and have an Azden 1200 series drop-in wireless receiver onboard. I’m using a hybrid tripod system featuring a Sachtler head on a Manfrotto carbon-fiber tripod. I also use a Panasonic HVX-200 recording on P2 cards as my second unit. In the field, I dump P2 files on a Nexto NVS 2500 drive. I protect all this gear with Petrol equipment bags and rain covers.
 

Now, Anton/Bauer has introduced the Dionic HCX battery. HC stands for High Current. These batteries are designed for power-hungry cameras that also run accessories like a light and monitor off the battery power. You can expect to get two hours run time with a 40-watt camera and a 20-watt light from each charge. This battery also features an advanced LCD RealTime Fuel gauge. This new LCD display accurately shows the user the actual remaining run time and battery capacity. The other new feature is it has a built-in motion detection sensor. After a two-day period without a load, the Dionic HCX automatically goes into “deep sleep,” reducing self-discharge and allowing extended storage with nearly zero capacity loss. It reactivates when you pick it up.

Anton/Bauer's Dionic HCX battery (above, left) has made life easier for McNeeley — their solar-powered Tandem 150 charger system could keep him in the field even longer.
 

Battery technology has evolved a long way in the 25-plus years I’ve been producing. Smart technology has reached this critical camera element and into the future I see even greater developments in miniaturization and even longer run times. Now if I can get them to build a two-hour battery about the size of a deck of cards that also keeps beer cold, I’ll try to forget about the elk that still haunts my predatory dreams.
 

Buck McNeely is producer-host of the world’s largest syndicated adventure series, The Outdoorsman with Buck McNeely. Visit www.outdoorsmanint.com for more info.