Broken Film Equipment!

[Dawg]

So this past Sunday I was in the middle of filming a scene for my zombie sequel and made a blunder that almost cost me! I am using a GL1 Canon Digital Camcorder, but I am tethered to the wall outlet because my two batteries don't have enough juice left in them anymore and they cost like $70 a pop. So the way the camera is set up, a plastic unit attaches to where the battery normally attaches to the camera and locks in place and a cord comes out of it and attaches to the battery adapter which has another cord that you plug into the electrical outlet. I went to pick up the camera, not knowing that the cord for the unit that attaches to the camera was underfoot and rip what I thought for a moment was the innards of my camera out! Of course, that couldn't happen and what it was was the plastic unit broke in half with one half still attached to the camera and the other half with the positive and negative wires sticking out with their metal strike plates. That ended filming for the day of course. I went online to see about purchasing a new one and found out pretty quick that Canon no longer makes it and no company carries it! (I found one on the Amazon UK site, but they won't ship out of the UK.) I found out that you can use the one designed for another Canon camera, but... you have to use the adapter for it because the old one wasn't compatible. Okay, $30 for the unit that attaches to the camera, and get this... $165 for the f***ing adapter!! Great way to suck more money out of your pocket. I said screw paying close to $200 just to power my camera. I could try and find a new battery (which I found one really cheap online that was new), or do what I finally did and that was to fix the broken one. It was hard at first, but there were no electronics involved and I just had to get the contacts to sit right and put the plastic housing back together. I should have super glued it, but I merely taped the ends and it works perfectly! Also, instead of batteries, I found about a week before this happened, a Black & Decker portable power supply that powers your equipment such as digital cameras for a hour and it was reduced to $10 from Wal-Mart. I planned on going back for the $40 model (normally $62) that powered for 9 hours, but they were all gone. So that was my fun evening this past Sunday, but it worked out for me in the end. Dawg

[DjfunkmasterG]

Hey DAWG, Go on eBay and type Battery Canon GL1, you will find a slew of non-oem batteries. I buy tons of those for $9.00 - $15.00 a battery and they work just fine. No problems or issues. I use them on a DVX100B and they have given me zero problems. You can also try eBay for the power unit. You would be surprised what turns up there. You can also get the power pack for a GL2, it is the same unit. However, the Gl1 is an oldie, and hard to find parts for. Now that Canon is full HD on the pro-sumer level it is hard to find parts for the older units. Time for an upgrade friend.

[axlish]

You don't want to limit yourself with an electric cord. Get more batteries at once!