- in Cinematography by Pascal Depuhl
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TechTip: How to power a GoPro for an all day time lapse

(TechTip – a short post about a quick tip that will save you time and frustration).
Wish I knew this on my last time lapse
I shot a day long behind the scene time lapse on my last motion job, but since the client hadn’t specified that we’re gonna be shooting a time lapse, I had not brought my usual time lapse DSLR setup that I’ve written about before, but had my GoPro Hero 3+ (@GoPro) in my kit. Even with an extended battery the camera will shoot around 2-3 hours, depending on how many photos, how large, ect. So every couple of hours we’d go check on the camera to see, if it’s still shooting.
Later my assistant told me that a GoPro will shoot while the battery is being charged externally – good to know! I put this info to the test yesterday.
Powering a multi day time lapse
Here’s my setup: GoPro Hero 3+ camera, set to take one 3K still photo every 5 seconds. I hooked up the camera via USB to a battery/inverter called Sherpa 50 made by Goal Zero (@GoalZero), the company that I purchased my solar charge set up for our shoot in the peruvian jungle last year.
The Sherpa ran the camera uninterrupted for over 14 hours, capturing almost 10,000 images until my 32GB microSD card filled up, while the GoalZero Sherpa still was at a 40% charge.