Originally posted by MJKoski If someone has solid advice how to prevent this without destroying the body structures then please tell about it.
Without knowing why it "froze" advice might be a little difficult. I would not under any circumstances use anti-freeze near the camera much less on it.
I think first you should determine why the leg froze. I can think of two possibilities:
- due to high humidity some ice formed in the mechanism. In this case, warming or anti-freeze would melt the ice or prevent it and thus fix the problem. But I still would not use anti-freeze.
- due to the low temperature there was some differential metal shrinkage that caused the mechanism to bind. In this case warming might help but anti-freeze would not.
If this is a one off and never happens again I would say the precise positioning of the legs caused them to bind at extreme temperatures. A slightly different positioning might have gone through the same temperatures without any issue.
If this occurs regularly and you often shoot in those conditions consider a warming device, either those chemical hand warmers or something electrical. Yes the hand warmers would prevent LCD movement, but no reason you cannot remove the hand warmer, re-position the LCD and then replace the warmer. Is this ideal? No, but you are not operating in ideal conditions either.