Rant: My cloud timelapse camera battery died right when the supercells rolled through

Last Sunday I had my GoPro set up for a 3-hour timelapse of some promising storm clouds building over the ridge near my place in Ohio. I checked the battery at noon and it was at 80%, figured that was plenty (big mistake). By the time those beautiful mammatus clouds started forming around 3:30, the camera had already shut off. I scrambled to grab my phone but by then the best shelf cloud structure was gone. Anyone else ever miss a rare cloud formation because your gear failed?

2 comments

2 Comments

evan_anderson1d ago

Honestly I gotta push back a little here. 80% battery on a GoPro for a 3 hour timelapse is usually plenty unless you're shooting at super high settings or it's really cold out. I've run my old Hero 5 Black for almost 4 hours straight from full charge and it barely hit 20%. Sounds like maybe the battery was just old and worn out, not really at 80% capacity anymore. Those lithium batteries lose their oomph after a couple years of charge cycles. Did you check the battery health or was it just showing a charge percentage?

adam_thomas1d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah that's rough, been there myself.