Camera Care and Behaviour in Cold Weather

[Downrigger]

I lean towards Virginia's thinking here.

I've been out well more than an hour or two at 10F and below and not had this come up. (No mUP or live though) Not to say an extra, warm battery isn't key advice, but it gets cold here high up and I haven't needed mine for my D600 on long outings.

Here's my worry - coming in from frigid-dry to humid-warm... wouldn't condensation form inside some areas? and if one went out again before it evaporated might you get some mechanical freeze-up or other harm. Just wondering.

Christina - don't you have a battery power icon - and what did it show?

[Manfred M]

Here's my worry - coming in from frigid-dry to humid-warm... wouldn't condensation form inside some areas? and if one went out again before it evaporated might you get some mechanical freeze-up or other harm. Just wondering.

Cold air is very dry, so any air getting inside your camera from being outside will have very little moisture content. Bring it straight inside, and you will get condensation on exterior surfaces, but the inside should be fine. I will leave my camera in my camera bag (lots of padding = well insulated) and it has the dry outside air trapped inside it too, so as things slowly warm up over a number of hours, there should be no condensation. I use sealed lenses with rear seal gaskets, so get a level of protection this way as well.

I take off any filter from the front element as moisture can be trapped between the lens front element and the filter, when heading out to shoot. Condensation / frost there is not a good thing to shoot through. I will put the filter on again outside, though.

I have at times wrapped my camera and lenses in plastic bags while still outside. That way, the cold dry air is trapped inside the bag. When the cold camera and moist interior air interact, condensation forms on the outside of the bag and never gets to the camera. I'll do this when I need to warm up the camera quickly.

I've had problems with film cameras in the extreme cold (anything from ripping the 35mm film perforations to actually stripping a gear in the film advance mechanism (but it was a cheap SLR camera).

[Downrigger]

Cold air is very dry, so any air getting inside your camera from being outside will have very little moisture content.

Thanks Manfred - but I think I had my concern backwards. Let's say you've had your camera equilibrated to warm/humid and then go out in the frigid... I guess the modern equipment breathes enough moisture out before surfaces reach freezing to avoid internal frosting or there's simply and inconsequential amount of moisture in that volume of air in the first place.

[Manfred M]

Thanks Manfred - but I think I had my concern backwards. Let's say you've had your camera equilibrated to warm/humid and then go out in the frigid... I guess the modern equipment breathes enough moisture out before surfaces reach freezing to avoid internal frosting or there's simply and inconsequential amount of moisture in that volume of air in the first place.

I guess I have been shooting in the winters long enough to have developed a workflow that minimizes problems for me. In extreme cold weather I try to not change lenses outside, and all of the pro glass that I shoot with is well sealed. The only way air can get into the camera is through blowback into the mirror chamber while zooming and focusing and with internal focus lenses, this risk is reduced.

In general I don't go straight out to shoot, but carry the camera gear by car and then by foot to the shooting location, so the gear does get a chance to acclimatize a bit. I've had some minor issues with the shutter release and some of the other buttons and controls, but never enough of an issue to affect my shooting.

Frankly. my biggest issue when I shoot in cold weather is wearing glasses. Somehow when I look through the viewfinder, the moist air from my breathing gets trapped between my face and my glasses, causing them to fog up. I tend to do my setups wearing gloves, and they are nowhere near as warm as mitts, but are far easier to use. I know some photographers use gloves that you can pop your fingers out of, but I haven't tried them.

[Brownbear]

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to share and advise. Some good info here.

Mark, yes my camera has a battery icon but of course when my camera died I couldn't see the icon. I checked it later and it was around 35-40% and the frozen spare was at 100%. I guess I was outside for about 3 1/2 hours and it might have been a little colder than -5C.

I did place my camera in my backpack before seeking a warm respite.

Virginia, good to know. I will handle my camera with more TLC. I never had any problems with my Nikon D80 in a super humid climate so the cold weather and battery thing took me by surprise. I don't have a cell phone or a kindle but I can see where they could prove to be very handy to have.

Lots of spare batteries kept warm from this day forward. Thank you.

[Brownbear]

Thank you. Memorized!

Christina first rule of cold weather shooting, Thou shall have 2 not 1 battery at all times. Second rule, Thou shall keep second battery in an inside pocket close to body to keep warm, third rule if shooting outside all day then Thou shall have 3 batteries of which two shall be kept warm as per rule #2.
Now you know the first three rules of winter shooting.

Cheers: Allan

[Polar01]

As to cold temperatures my cold weather workflow is in winter camera and gear is in back of SUV 24/7, if for some reason I have to come in from the cold gear in bag which has waterproof sealing and padding left near door with coat on top to keep cold. Seen may other come leave gear on table, leave an hour later freeze up. As long as I have 1 or 2 extra batteries charged and warm I am ready to go.

Cheers: Allan

[Colin Southern]

Unfortunately, there is a bit of a complication; when the battery is draining, it is because it is supplying power. The compounds in the battery have resistance and by merely having some current flowing, one generates heat. In cold conditions, this actually helps, because chemical reactions occur in the battery and these are temperature dependent; the warmer the conditions (to a limit of course), the more efficient the battery is in producing electrical current.

The reason that batteries do not work at low temperatures is that the chemical reactions occur at such a low level, not enough (at an extreme level, none at all) current is generated to power the equipment. This is why the gentle heating of the battery by placing it against the body works; warm batteries produce current.

Where the tradeoff between keeping the camera on to warm up the battery and draining the power would be an interesting study (too many variables to be really useful); but that being said, when I shoot in the winter; I turn my camera off less often than in the summer to get a bit of the resistive heating effect. Up here in the Great White North; this is a technique we use to improve cranking power when starting our cars on a cold day. We turn on the headlights and put a bit of a load on the battery for perhaps 20 seconds before turning on the car ignition; the improvement in "cranking power" is noticeable.

Hi Manfred,

If you do the math I suspect you'll find that the heat loss due to the temperature differential probably waaaay outstrips the heat through internal resistance.

We get exactly the same performance issues with RC heli batteries, but even after pulling 20+ amps from them (2200mAH discharged in about 6 minutes), they're only "nicely warm" (and cool quickly).

So - great if you can pull enough current to do that, but in practice I suspect that with a camera battery you'd be f^arting against thunder as they say.

Another option is to simply bundle the battery with a chemical hand warmer.

[Manfred M]

I suspect that you are right Colin, it's just based on a casual observation that I seemed to get more shooting time out of a camera I left on versus turning it off between shots. When I was out shooting some panos downtown, the first time I ended up swapping a battery as the power level dropped. A few nights later when I was repeating the process, I was out longer on a colder night and did not need to swap out batteries. I had to wait far longer to get my shots (camera on) as there were more people on Parliament Hill. I forgot to switch of the camera as I moved between locations and I shot a third location. It just seemed kind of odd that the battery lasted as long as it did.

Overall, I expect that I would have gotten more total shots out of the shoot / remove / rewarm cycle.

On the other hand, there were different variables (not the same battery), colder, but less wind (reduced heat transfer rate?)

As for hand warmers - I could have used those for my hands/

[AndrewMcD]

I've found this thread quite interesting. To date, this winter I've not had any problems in the cold weather but I've not spent extended periods in below freezing temps with my camera. Interesting to note and agree with Colin's comments regarding LiPo batteries (I believe essentially the same technology of the batteries in our cameras) that he uses in RC hell. I can't imagine the power consumption in a camera is enough to heat the battery to offset loss of performance. It would be a very inefficient design that might do so. I fly RC aircraft and I have seen specs on the batteries that show the performance degrades significantly with temperature so fully anticipate a camera battery would do the same. Regarding manufacturers temp specs for camera operation; I agree with, I think it was Mike's comment, that tech specs are written more by lawyers than engineers! In a career of designing and constructing scientific instrumentation for environments as demanding as near space and Antarctica we constantly ran up against the fiction that was the spec provided by the manufacturer versus what real world performance was. I'm not at all surprised that cameras will operate way outside the tech spec provided. Just don't tell anybody that you've done so if you need warranty service!

[Manfred M]

Andrew - I wasn't suggesting that there is an offset in loss of performance, but rather a possible slowdown in loss of performance. That being said, the test was rather unscientific, but I just found the differences in battery performance interesting.

I should probably have been more worried about damage with camera resin components dropping below the glass transition temperature. Nothing like a few parts (like the battery compartment door) snapping off to ruin one's day; although -20C really isn't all that cold.

[AndrewMcD]

Clarification noted, thank you. While your test may, as you put it, have been "rather unscientific", in the end it is what we find through our own practices and works for us is what really matters.
I love that you conclude with "-20C really isn't all that cold." Here in Delaware if it gets anywhere near 0F (-17C) the populace thinks the world is ending!