Hi all,
My ultimate goal with the kinemini is to keep the rig a as small as possible and I’ve been researching on power solutions for a while now and my final thoughts were that I’m just gonna give up and go with the extreme amount of the 18650 batteries but then the atomos came out with this new power station <a href="http://www.atomos.com/power-station/” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.atomos.com/power-station/.
You can hot swap batteries, it indicates the power status and it accepts wide range of batteries like canon, sony etc. Although I’d rather have the two batteries aligned vertically rather then horizontally which makes it very long the dimension seems to fit the size of the camera. My guess is that atomos only though of dslr users. What you think guys?
Hey Boy Martin, I don’t see any reason for this not to work with the KineMINI, as the PowerStation works within KineMINIs voltage range. Of course it all depends on your expected shooting time etc also. If you go with the PowerStation and use a set of NP-F970 batteries with it, you’re looking at 95wh of power, which should give you around 6hrs of running time on the KineMINI per pair of batteries (of course with them being hot-swappable, you could in theory run it indefinitely).
Depending on how often you don’t mind swapping the batteries, it could become quite expensive. For example I would probably opt for Sony NP-F970 batteries are they are a good capacity so would mean i wouldn’t have to change them as often:
PowerStation: $295
Sony NP-F970s (x6): $750
Total = $1045
Where as using Sony NP-F570s for example, would only give you around 2hrs per set of batteries but reduce the cost by $330.
Obviously this becomes much cheaper if you already have some compatible batteries lying around. The reason I factored in 6x batteries is because it takes around the same amount of time to charge one battery as it would to run down a pair of batteries on the KineMINI. so by having 6 you have 3 sets of batteries to cycle through, always having 2 sets fully charged at a time, in theory.
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I opted for a 160wh V-Mount battery before this was announced, which should make the camera last around 10hrs. Although I might eventually invest in a PowerStation also as it would have portability advantages as you stated.
Your other option, as you suggested in the sidegrip with 18650 batteries, however this wouldn’t be ideal as it only lasts around 90mins (apparently) and you would also then need a seperate battery to power a monitor, where as the V-Mount or PowerStation options could power both the camera and monitor in one.
Im not sure if that helped you make a decision or just complicate things, but they are my thoughts on power options for the camera anyway 🙂
