Traveling Abroad

[Joe Campanellie]

MY wife and I will be making our first trip outside the US. Leave on Sunday to photograph a wedding in St Lucia and for some r&r. Not having traveled much I just found out that the power there is 220V.

For those of you who do a lot of traveling what do you do about your battery chargers for the camera and flash batteries.

I have the Canon 1D Mark11 and the Powerex AA batteries if it makes any difference.

Thanks...

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Joe Just need a converter and will be fine !!

Last time I was in St Lucia I was on a Cruise Ship so power was not a problem. Lots to photograph on that Island !!! .. there is a neat bat cave :)

[Joe Campanellie]

Thanks Al...should be a fun trip. Doing some wedding photos as a favor to one of my wife's friends. In exchange we get room and board for 11 days. Not a bad deal at all.

Will have to look into the converter. I did notice on both the chargers that I have for my camera batteries and my AA's that it is rated from 100-240 so I am assuming that the system has a converter built into it.

[William Malacarne]

Joe

As you noticed the voltage will work ok. You may need to get and adapter plug tp put on your wall olg. Throughout the world there are many different styles. Radio Shack probably has them. They used to have a whole kit that covered most places throughout the world but also sell individual ones.

Bill

[John Chardine]

Just to be clear Joe, your Canon charger should say on it that it will accept 110-220V so the only issue is making sure you have a physical converter to be able to plug your North American plug into a St. Lucia socket, which BTW is the British style. These plug converters can be obtained in any airport. Again, you don't need a transformer, just the plug converter.

[Roger Clark]

Joe,
Check your charger. Most chargers do 110/220 volt. If it says that, you can plug it in directly (but probably need an adapter). Most voltage converters do not work well. It may convert the voltage but will not convert the frequency (most of 220 V systems are 50 Hz, versus 110 V 60 Hz). My 1D Mark II charger works fine on 220 V systems.

Roger

[Kiran Khanzode]

Joe,
What you need is plug adapters (British style), they will be square shaped. I always buy from this site, here's a link for St Lucia/ UK

http://www.110220volts.com/Z-Adapters-st-lucia.html

Radio Shack and airports are rip-offs , if you have enough time, order from this site, if not...you know where to go now.

I usually also carry a power-strip with me in addition to the plug adapters whenever I travel. Never know if that remote place would have multiple outlets for hooking up your equipment or not.

If you do use outlets in a jeep or something, then you need to make sure that the vehicle has an inverter. If using in hotels etc, all USA built equip should handle both types of voltages (110-220). Double check the voltage rating on your power adapters/chargers

Have fun.