Using camera in extreme temperatures

[cawdor]

Hi all,
I'll be going on a holiday in december and part of that holiday takes me to Lapland, Sweden on a dogsledding tour. I've been advised that the temps will be around minus 20-30 degrees C. My question is if I need to be concerned for my camera/lens in those temps? The gear will be out frequently to take shots, and I don't fancy the motor/shutter etc freezing!!!

What can I do (apart from keeping the camera in its padded bag) in order to avoid any of this, or is it not an issue?

[big pix]

spare batteries close to your body to keep them warm and to hold a better charge....... sounds great

[Glen]

I would suggest the same as BP, and if inside outside a lot maybe a sealed bag to reduce condensation, though I doubt much inside with dogsledding. If out all the time I would keep the batteries out of the camera and on your person. Capacity is much less in the cold temps, make sure you have more than one spare.

[Oscar]

On my last skiing trip I took a P&S camera. I was advised to keep the camera (battery) warm - and obviously to do this I kept it in an inside pocket. This is not an option for a DSLR due to size. However if you could also keep the body warm it would be a help when the batteries are loaded. Cold batteries will not hold a charge for long.

Moisture inside any camera compenents would be another major problem you could encounter as at those temps it would freeze and could cause major problems. This should not be a problem for general use but keep the snow away from camera and lens.

Enjoy your trip. I need another one soon. Cheers, Mick

[Matt. K]

I remember hearing that lithium batteries don't suffer from the cold as much as Nicads. Your biggest problem is condensation if you go into a warm place after being out in the cold. I once had a Nikkor lens fog up so much it was unusable for about 2 hours. You must place the camera into a ziplock bag with silica gel and squeeze the air out of the bag before entering a heated building. If you don't you run the real risk of geting your electronics damp.

[Ivanerrol]

I have just sold a camera to a member of the team at Mawson in the antartic. He gave me these insights into his camera use down there.- these are his quotes
>I am at Mawson station at the moment, in blizzard condition as I type, blowing 60+ knots, though it is a warm -10 degrees.
Surprisingly most LCD screen seem to work OK down to -30, their response is generally slow but I have had my video camera and my istDS digital out in the cold no problems.
>I must say my istDS has been amazing in working regularly down to -30 (it is only rated to 0 degrees) and coping with being dropped on hard ice with batteries being the major drama with digital camera's down here.
>The biggest problems I have had is sticking shutters on my MX and ME super, fogging view finders and trying to work in 2 pairs of gloves has been the hardest thing. My pelican case has been wonderful at protecting my gear and even better when coming in from the cold at stopping condensation.

He has just bought a Super A and P30 Pentax film cameras. They are easy to operate with gloves on. I would have thought a Nikon mechanical would have been better and more rugged.

Interesting information.

[shakey]

I've used my D70 extensively at Perisher this year. Unfortunately I can't tell how yours will perform in extreme conditions as the temperature at Perisher only occasionally went below zero.

[Yi-P]

From my experience I can only say that long exposures at night with cold batteries will eat up your battery life at an exponential rate. I tried about 10 x 5mins and another 3x 15mins exposures, drained up 2 bars of battery when I got back in the room, lucky I had a charger with me.


As other said, get a sealable watertight bag. A couple of those zip-lock food bags can do. Put your camera/lenses inside before walking from cold place back into any heated room/indoor area.

And never put your camera inside your coat/jacket, take the batteries out and put into your pocket with the plastic cover in place.

[cawdor]

Thanks for the replies guys, I'll definitely take some ziplock bags and spare batteries - I haven't got a Pelican case (yet )
I think I would take my gloves off to operate the camera, it's certainly gonna be a challenge in terms of photography and I'm gonna post some shots if they turn out ok *fingers crossed*.

[Glen]

Tim, in really cold enviroments I use two sets of gloves, a thin set of silk gloves inside the bigger ones, they stop bare skin gluing itself to cold metal

[cawdor]

Good advice Glen, as much as I like photography I don't fancy my finger being stuck on the shutter

[Gordon]

From my experience I can only say that long exposures at night with cold batteries will eat up your battery life at an exponential rate. I tried about 10 x 5mins and another 3x 15mins exposures, drained up 2 bars of battery when I got back in the room, lucky I had a charger with me.

only 2 bars? clearly you were not using a D200! On warm nights I can only get about 1.5 hours maximum out of mine, a couple of nights ago I did 302 X 13 second exposures at a 15 sec interval and the battery was almost dead... it died 1 second into the 303rd exposure!

I've done a lot of photography in cold temperatures in the course of taking astrophotos over the years and most of the measures to take have already been posted above. One other technique that I used was a metal box that I could flush with dry nitrogen gas- the cold cameras and lenses were placed in the box (an old small watertight ammo box that I added some gas fittings to) with the large bag of silica gel that lived in there permanently. I then flushed it with dry N2 before taking into warmer temperatures, and left to warm up in that very dry atmosphere to avoid any condensation and or frosting. I've had frost and condensation form on my lenses plenty of times during long exposures- but its never caused any damage. For long exposures on cold nights where frost or condensation was a risk I made myself some lens heaters- 240V electric jug elements wrapped in sleeping bag material that was wrapped around the lens and camera, and run off 6V, which supplied a few watts of heating.

Gordon

[Dprime]

I took my Nikon D70s to Japan with me last year. Hiked upto the peak and everything with it and kept it in a water proof bag I got from a scuba diving shop with a towel and some cilica inside.

I took about 300 shots over the the week which included hiking to the peak for a full day and my battery indicator never left full the hole trip. Mind you I was using a aftermarket Grip with 2 batteries inside, but I was still very suprised. The temperatures ranged from about -10 to -20.

One thing I did notice was my shots from the peak seemed to be very noisy compared to the others, so I'm guessing the cold wether will effect the amount of noise.

Overall I was very impressed with my nikon that trip, I carried it around everywere with me, some of the time just under my jumper at night while it was snowing.. even got sprayed with snow a couple of times and not one thing to date has ever gone wrong with it... touch wood!

[Gordon]

One thing I did notice was my shots from the peak seemed to be very noisy compared to the others, so I'm guessing the cold wether will effect the amount of noise.

yes cold does affect noise, but not in the way you are thinking! Lower temperatures mean lower thermal "noise" in CCDs, thats why astronomical CCDs are cooled to very cold temps. At work we cool ours to -102C.

On digital cameras you an see this on long exposures too, they produce the most thermal noise, ie hot pixels. Winter time exposures in frosty conditions give much cleaner results on the D70 than mid summer nights when its around 25 or 30C. For typical daylight short exposures, thermal noise is unlikely to be obvious at low ISO settings, even in desert summer heat.
So, your noisy shots must be from something else, set exposure compensation to -2 or 3 stops, or accidentally set it to ISO 1600 maybe?
Or maybe something else entirely...

Gordon

[Dprime]

So, your noisy shots must be from something else, set exposure compensation to -2 or 3 stops, or accidentally set it to ISO 1600 maybe?
Or maybe something else entirely...

Gordon

I dont think my camera has ever been set on that . But no it wasnt that, ah well I'm sure theres a reason for it out there somewere