The Power and Charging Setup You Need for a Multi-Day SUP Trip With a Camera
Keeping camera gear charged across five days of paddling Lake Tahoe with my best friend Michael Whalen, with no reliable outlet anywhere along our route, turned out to be one of the more genuinely difficult logistics problems of the entire trip. Here's what actually worked, what didn't, and what I'd change about power management for a future multi-day expedition with camera gear.
Why Power Became a Real Constraint
Documenting the trip meant running two camera bodies, a Sony a7R IV and a Sony a7S III, across five consecutive days with no wall outlet anywhere along the route. Battery life that feels generous during a typical single-day shoot becomes a genuine limiting factor once you're stretching it across multiple days of shooting without any reliable way to fully recharge.
What Our Power Bank Setup Actually Looked Like
We carried a portable power bank intended to recharge camera batteries and phones throughout the trip, though we ran into a real problem the night before departure when we realized one of our boards had no clean way to mount it securely. That last-minute scramble to find a workable solution meant less optimal power access than a properly planned setup would have provided.
How Cold Nights Affected Battery Performance
Camera batteries drain faster in cold conditions, and our overnight temperatures, particularly on Fannette Island where we slept exposed with no roof above us, took a real toll on battery charge levels by morning. If you're planning a similar trip, budget for this cold-weather drain specifically, since it can eat into your available power faster than daytime usage patterns alone would suggest.
What We'd Recommend for Battery Management
Carry more spare batteries than you think you need, since a fully charged spare gives you flexibility that relying purely on power bank recharging doesn't. Rotate through batteries deliberately, keeping some in reserve rather than running everything down simultaneously, so you're never caught with all your power sources depleted at the same time.
How Much Capacity a Multi-Day Trip Actually Requires
Estimate your power needs generously and then add real margin beyond that estimate, since actual usage across five demanding days of shooting tends to run higher than initial planning suggests. We underestimated our own needs somewhat, which meant more conservative shooting decisions later in the trip than I would have preferred, skipping some shots specifically to preserve battery for moments I judged more important.
What Solar Charging Would Have Added
We didn't carry solar charging capability on this trip, relying entirely on a single power bank's stored capacity. Looking back, a compact solar panel, even a modest one, could have extended our available power meaningfully across five days of consistent sun exposure on open water, and it's the first addition I'd make to our setup for a future attempt at a similarly extended trip.
What I'd Change About Testing Our Setup Beforehand
The power bank mounting problem that surfaced the night before departure is exactly the kind of issue a full system test, days before launch rather than the final evening, would have caught with enough time to actually solve properly. Test your complete charging setup, mounted and functioning the way you intend to use it on the water, well before your departure date rather than assuming it will work as planned.
What Specific Shots We Sacrificed Due to Power Limits
Being honest about the cost of our power limitations, there were specific moments I wanted to document more thoroughly but chose not to, preserving battery for what I judged as more important material later in the day. That trade-off is worth planning around explicitly rather than discovering it in the moment, deciding in advance which categories of shots take priority if power genuinely runs short.
How This Compares to Documenting a Typical Single-Day Shoot
Most of my professional work involves single-day or short multi-day shoots where power management is a minor consideration handled easily with standard charging between sessions. This trip required an entirely different level of planning specifically because that easy recharge option simply didn't exist, a distinction worth understanding if you're used to shorter documentation projects and considering something more extended.
What Equipment I've Added Since This Trip
Based directly on what we learned here, I've since added solar charging capability and more spare battery capacity to my standard kit for any multi-day expedition, regardless of destination. That change came specifically from feeling the real limitation of our own setup during those five days, a lesson that's shaped every project since.
The Bottom Line on Power Management
Overestimate your power needs, carry spare batteries beyond what feels necessary, test your full charging setup well before departure, and accept that some shots may need to be sacrificed to preserve capacity for what matters most.
What I'd Tell a Brand About Documenting Similar Expeditions
If you're a brand sponsoring content from a similarly disconnected expedition, understand that power constraints will genuinely shape what gets captured, and build that reality into your expectations rather than assuming unlimited documentation is possible. The best material still emerges from these constraints, but it emerges differently than it would from a fully resourced, professionally supported shoot.
What This Taught Me About Documentation Priorities Generally
Beyond the specific power logistics, this trip clarified something about how I think about documentation priorities under real constraint, capture the moments that carry the most narrative weight first, and treat everything else as a bonus if resources allow. That prioritization mindset has served me well on every single project since, regardless of whether power specifically happens to be the limiting factor on any given trip.
What I'd Say to a Photographer New to This Kind of Constraint
If you're used to shooting with reliable power access and facing your first genuinely disconnected multi-day project, expect the constraint to change your creative process in ways beyond simple logistics. Scarcity forces intentionality, and some of my strongest material from this entire trip came directly from having to choose carefully what to capture, rather than shooting freely and sorting it all out later without any real limits.
What Ultimately Made This Constraint Worth Accepting
Despite the real difficulty of managing power across five days, I wouldn't trade the authenticity that constraint added to the project for an easier, fully resourced documentation setup. The limitations became part of the story rather than simply an obstacle to it.
Before You Close This Tab
How do you keep camera batteries and devices charged across five days with no reliable power source, based on your own experience with similar logistics challenges?
Would solar charging capability change how you approach power management on your own multi-day trip?
How much spare battery capacity would you carry beyond your initial estimate of what you'll need?
Have you tested your full charging setup under real conditions before committing to a trip that depends on it working?
Dalton Johnson is a photographer, filmmaker, and brand storyteller based in South Lake Tahoe, California. Over the past decade he has worked with brands including Patagonia, GoPro, Arc'teryx, Four Seasons, Nike, Rivian, and Ford Bronco across all seven continents. He is the creator of the Follow The Journey distribution framework, which has produced over one million organic views per 30-day cycle without paid media. His work includes two published books, an award-winning documentary that aired on PBS, and more than fifty commercial spots directed. He runs Stories by Dalton on Substack, read by more than 34,000 subscribers.