It was another gorgeous moning at the Water Ranch. The Ring-necked Ducks were being particularly friendly this morning often coming closer than I could focus. The Z600f4 TC’s ability to capture minute detail boggles my mind and when I saw all the drops of water, the barps of the feathers pop within the narrow band of focus at f/4, the thought popped into my mind. What would happen at f/11? So I dialed f/11 in and instantly saw my shutter speed head for the basement, 1/40! Capturing the detail requires that extra depth of focus, but also a shutter speed to stop motion. Ducks bob up and down and side to side. 1/40 ain’t enough to stop that motion alone so I needed to really watch peak of action. Then I needed to really shoot a lot of frames because it is really a low precentage shot. And in the end, I only needed 1 frame, the one you see above, to be successful. To get the shot then cost shutter speed, lots of frames, time to go through all those frames at the minimum. That’s the price of depth!

The easiest and best blog post I’ve gotten to write in a long time! Z 9 Firmware update now adds Bird and Aircraft detection (OK, I lied, there are two things) to its brilliant AF! Yeah Baby!!!

As you are well aware, our passion takes energy, personal and actual to keep it going. I have this kinda crazy project I’m thinking about for the future where I need to have power totally off the grid, lots of power and I found the answer in Bluetti. The Bluetti AC60 & 200w Solar Panel arrived last week and I set right off planning a field trip to test it. The first thing one might think is, overkill. When you think of all we need to power and charge, notebooks, sat / iPhones, camera & flash batteries, radios just to mention a few items, the watts & amps add up. I already have some smaller, solar chargers & batteries but all but one has died overtime. I wanted a unit that was going to keep on going and going.

The first thing that caught my attention about Bluetti was their six year warranty. Next was all the power in comparison compared to size. Here are the specs for the AC60

BATTERY INFO
Capacity:
403Wh (18Ah)
Type:
LiFePO4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate)
Life Cycles:
3,000+ Cycles to 80% Original Capacity
Shelf-life:
Recharge to 80% Every 3-6 Months
Management System:
MPPT Controller, BMS, etc.
OUTPUT
AC Outlets:
2 × 120V/5A
600W In Total
Inverter Type:
Pure Sine Wave
Surge Power:
1,200W
USB-C Port:
1 × 100W Max. (Built-in eMark chip)
USB-A Port:
2 x 5V/3A
12V DC Outlet:
1 × 12V/10A (Car outlet, regulated.)
Wireless Charging Pad:
1 x 15W Max.
INPUT
AC Power Input (Turbo Mode):
600W Max.
Solar Input:
200W Max., VOC 12-28V, 8A
Car Input:
12/24V from Cigarette Lighter Port
Max Input:
600W
RECHARGE TIME
AC Charging Cable
(600W Turbo Charging):
≈1-1.5 Hours
Solar Panel (s)
(200W):
≈2.5-3 Hours
(With prime sunshine, ideal orientation and low temperature)
12V/24V Car Outlet
(100W/200W):
≈4.5-5 Hours / 2.5-3 Hours

Being able to charge it via 120 socket, car cigeratte socket, car battery or what I desired, solar is a biggie. Yeah, I can simply place my iPhone on top of it and it charges up fast. But what about real life? It just so happened that Mother Nature provided me with help there. We were to have a mother of a thunderstorm hit us for some twelve hours. I figured the power would go out so I did a real world “office” test before it did so I had time to recharge the AC60 if I really needed it. I plugged in my travel multi strip and then plugged in my iMac and drives, MacBook Pro and coffee maker (had to make it real world for an office morning) and dang if it all didn’t power up and do its thing. Yep, coffee was hot.

Now the specs say four hour battery life and to be honest with you, I’ve not tested that yet. Once everything came on and coffee was done brewing, I left test mode and I dove into work and turned everything off and plugged back into the grid. We never lost power so never did a long range test. It is coming though! To say I was impressed, totally amazed is an understatement! I put the solar panel on, charged it up and ready for power to go out. I am so impressed with the Bluetti, how complete it comes with cords and the like, I am truly amazed. If I’m gone and Sharon is home alone and the power goes out, she’s golden and that’s truly reassuring. It’s not standard camera kit gear, rather specialized actually but I’m telling you the Bluetti is amazing, power my life.

This is simply a really cool, really small, really light, really powerful LED light. The short video says it all and you can check out for yourself here.