Externally powering a Stylus-1 camera

I recently discovered that the alibaba.com site sells dummy BLS batteries, and I decided to put some pictures up with the Olympus Stylus-1, unlike the micro 4/3rds cameras with most of the lenses (*), with the Stylus-1, you can zoom from the phone app. The Stylus-1 is about 400g which means I can use it on a wifi pan/tilt head I bought for my LX10, and use the camera to capture things remotely, zooming, panning, and tilting to change angle and photograph taken.

Unlike most of the micro 4/3rds cameras, the Olympus Stylus-1 does not have a removable battery cover, but it has a little piece of plastic that can be moved so you can snake the power cable out of the camera. The cable from the dummy BLS is a little snug, but I could get the battery door closed with it.

In general with these dummy batteries, you need to supply 9 volts and 1 amp of power. If you are boosting the power up from a USB battery, many USB batteries may not supply enough power (5 volts at 2.1 amps) to run the camera, because the battery will only deliver high power to known devices.

In this example, I'm using a battery (TalentCell) that has direct 9v output here, but with other cameras, I've used a HQRP USB to 9/12v converter with USB batteries that can deliver enough power. Many of the merchants that sell the dummy batteries have now provided a voltage converter that has 2 USB plugs, with the idea that you plug each one into a separate battery pack.

If the voltage is less than 9 volts, you may need a dummy battery that is fully decoded for the camera (i.e. it pretends to be the official battery). I haven't checked if this battery is fully decoded or not (this is more true in Panasonic cameras).

If you do this, you probably want to set the options for the Stylus-1 not to go to sleep when it is connected this way. I found that out the hard way with the LX10

• Dummy BLS battery: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Dummy-Battery-PS-BLS5-BLS-5_60799485411.html?spm=a2700.7724838.2017115.1.5ab77faeuNcBZt
• Wifi pan/tilt head: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B074XCYCND/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I had to boost the tone mappings and bring up the shadows to show the detail in black on the photos below:

* If you use a micro 4/3rds body using the phone app, there are four older, slower lenses that have electronic zoom and you can zoom the lens, but in general, you cannot zoom most lenses:

• Olympus 14-42mm EZ
• Olympus 12-50mm EZ
• Panasonic 14-42mm PZ
• Panasonic 45-175mm PZ

You could put an E-m10 mark II + 14-42mm EZ lens on the pan/tilt head I'm using, but the total is something like 500g, which is at the top of the specifications for the pan/tilt head.

If the Olympus AIR A01 had worked for me, it would have been perfect to use, alas when I had one, I could not reliably connect to my phone even if I was next to the AIR A01. So, I had to wait a few years to get a working remote combination.

<edit>

I moved the pictures to a different album:

Stylus-1 with dummy battery and USB power pack

Stylus-1 with a dummy battery and USB power pack

Stylus-1 with dummy battery connected

Stylus-1 on wifi pan/tilt head and using the dummy battery.