Photo equipment in cold envionments

[denisv]

I'd like to ask about photography in cold envionments. I'd want to take my K20D and the Sigma out at night again, but the temperatures can drop to as low as -10C. Will cold potentially damage either the camera or the lens?

I went out a few nights ago and came back and found what looked like frosted condensation on the lens. What am I supposed to do about this? Do I just leave it to dry or do I wipe it off?

[rburgoss]

Temperature (low or high) will not damage your equipment. What may do so, is "temperature change" that causes condensation.

Anytime you take anything cold into a warm environment, will cause condensation (air conditioned room and out the door in mid summer or like in your case, shooting outdoors in winter then coming into the house where its warm).

For this situation, the trick is "moisture isolation". Use a large plastic back (sealable such as ziplocks) to put your gear into when it is cold, then bring it into the warm (or out in summer) and let it "climatize" for a few minutes. That is, let the gear get to room temperature before opening the bag.

That way, condensation will be a minimum.

Anyway, every time after such conditions happen during your shooting conditions, I would advice to store your gear in a moisture controlled case (box, shelf, drawer, whatever) that will finally dry up any left condensation remaining from the "cold-warm-cold-warm" hazzle from your shooting conditions.

[navcom]

Rburgoss is correct. Condensation is your biggest worry, albiet relatively small. I live in Minnesota. I woke up two mornings ago to -26C (-15F). This is fairly common around here but I've never had a problem with my camera(s).

I've never resorted to the bag concept but it certainly won't hurt. For me I just bring in the camera and let it assume room temperature before opening it up (changing lenses, removing a lens cap or data card, etc.). Just leave it alone for about 15 minutes or so and let the condensation evaporate. In 25+ years I've never had a problem with any camera from winter usage or condensation.

The one thing you will notice is quicker battery drainage when cold so keep an extra battery handy.

[Urmas R.]

I recently noticed that in cold (below 0C) the autofocus does some funny things on my K20d. Most of the time I use manual focus, but once in a while also AF. When I then change back to MF then sometimes the autofocus starts to beep as indicating that it has locked on to something. I does not affect MF and functioning of the camera. It is more likely to occur when I accidentally press focus button (I have it set to AF button on the back) on the camera, when in MF mode. The beeping stops, when I switch the camera OFF for a moment.

[Ron Boggs]

Subfreezing weather? My favorite time to shoot! To avoid or minimize the condensation issue, I repack my camera and lenses into their "kit" which is usually a sealed Pelican dry storage case. When I bring that case back into a warm area--house or vehicle--it tends not to gather condensation because it warms slowly within the case. Note that the sealed case has nothing to do with keeping condensation out as the condensation comes from humidity in the air. By allowing the gear to warm over a few hours' time, the condensation problem just doesn't happen. And yes, I live in a very dry environment with almost no humidity thus reducing potential issues, but I travel to the high Arctic, Alaska, NWT and many snow-clad mountain areas with high humidity and still haven't ever had an issue.
Additionally, if you want to shoot multiple times per day, keeping your gear cold also means keeping it at the ready. If you just bring the camera indoors and fog it up, then you can't shoot until it defogs over a several hour period. Again, the kit keeps the temp somewhat stable allowing me to warm myself between shoots and the camera is ready to go at any time.
Note that keeping batteries going is the biggest subfreezing issue. I use my front pants pockets for "warm" batteries and just remove the "frozen" batteries when the camera indicates low battery. Put the cold battery in the pocket--brrr--where it regains it's charge as it warms. This is particularly important with digital cameras because if the battery "dies" while writing an image to the card (red light activated) it can corrupt the card and cause difficulties getting any previous images off the card without using card rescue services. That's another reason to always carry at least one backup card...if you "dead battery" wreck a card, you don't want that to end your photo shoot--especially if you are far from an outlet to buy another card or two...

[southy]

I would think a bigger concern would be from going in an air conditioned room to a hot environment, seeing as the relative humidity is also greater.

The saving grace about cold weather / winter is that the amount of water vapor in the air that can condense on your equipment is a lot lower. Also why you get dry skin in the winter. I don't shoot in subfreezing, but my work/electronics get shipped all around the world and we worry a lot about environmental testing; from sea to space so to speak. Hot and humid is far more dangerous than cold and dry

-southy

[Ron Boggs]

Hot and humid is definitely worse--lens fungus is almost unheard of in Northern climes.
Temperature difference is also part of this equation. Going from 70f air conditioned into 90f humid outdoors often causes condensation, but not always. Going from subzero into 70f indoors ALWAYS causes condensation. Similar situation can be seen with drinking water...cold water may or may not cause condensation on the glass indoors while iced water ALWAYS causes condensation on the glass indoors. So "shock" from the difference is part of this as well the humidity carrying capacity of the air temp.

[navcom]

Originally Posted by Ron Boggs

Hot and humid is definitely worse--lens fungus is almost unheard of in Northern climes.
Temperature difference is also part of this equation. Going from 70f air conditioned into 90f humid outdoors often causes condensation, but not always. Going from subzero into 70f indoors ALWAYS causes condensation. Similar situation can be seen with drinking water...cold water may or may not cause condensation on the glass indoors while iced water ALWAYS causes condensation on the glass indoors. So "shock" from the difference is part of this as well the humidity carrying capacity of the air temp.

Yep! When teaching this principle to primary flight students, I used to hold up a picture of a desert, complete with camel, and another picture of a foggy alpine forest with 2 feet of snow and ask them in which environment scenario can the air hold the most water. It's the desert. When air temps get cold, it can't hold as much water and 100% humidity is reached very quickly.

Of course it's all "relative"..... (little weather joke there..."relative humidity")

So it is worse walking from air conditioning to humid and hot environments. There is much more water in the air at 100% relative humidity than there is when you go from cold outside temps at 100% relative humidity to an indoor heated environment (which is dry as well).

[minikin]

I must say I am extremely impressed with the cold weather performance of the K20D. Having had it for just over a week, it has had already had 3 sub -30C trips, approx 250 shots per outing and hasn't acted up or even showed low battery. I remove my card while still outside, put the camera in a ziploc and let it warm overnight.

[arkansas72762]

I had my k20d out last night in the low 20's for over an hour shooting a big full moon and it worked great. I just put the camera back in the bag before I come in.

[panoguy]

I took my K20D to the zoo yesterday (got some great shots of giraffes in the snow!) and it was a reasonable 27F and the battery charge held for quite a while (about 300 shots).

However... my wife and kid weren't happy just tromping in the snow the whole time and went into the "Malayan Jungle building" where I dutifully followed without thinking... and soon enough I remembered my camera was only in its Kata holster (non-sealed, barely insulated)!

Yep... pretty much soaked it going from below-freezing to 85F with 70% humidity. Not just condensation, but there were big droplets of water all over the body and every glass surface was seriously fogged and dripping (non-sealed Sigma lens, no less). I just sighed and put it away (and missed some great shots of golden tamarins), but it doesn't seem worse for the wear.

Aside from cleaning the glass like normal, is there anything else I should look out for? Should I clean the mirror or sensor for not terribly visible "water spots" or some such? I can't see much there, but you never know...

-Mark

[navcom]

Originally Posted by panoguy

Aside from cleaning the glass like normal, is there anything else I should look out for? Should I clean the mirror or sensor for not terribly visible "water spots" or some such? I can't see much there, but you never know...

-Mark

I'm no expert here, but I would think you should be OK as long as you didn't open the camera up (change the lens) while you were in the "jungle". Are you seeing water spots show up on prints?

[panoguy]

Originally Posted by navcom

I'm no expert here, but I would think you should be OK as long as you didn't open the camera up (change the lens) while you were in the "jungle". Are you seeing water spots show up on prints?

Thanks for the reassurance. No, I didn't change lenses, and I've been examining the innards and lens glass as much as possible, and only a little dust is visible.

The reason I ask about water spots is because I wouldn't know what they'd look like in an image, whereas dust is a pretty obvious occlusion. In any case, since I can't find much wrong with my images, I'll count myself lucky and bring a bag next time...

[Blue]

For some extreme temps check out this link and threads:

Science Experiment: Camera Not Lost in Space


Pentax k10d in space

Pentax k10d in Space II

[Chwisch87]

That just shows how truely good pentax gear is.

You cannot spend the 700 dollars on a camera from a different brand and get somethign that performs like that.