does prolonged cold weather affect gear?

[jeff ross]

i don't know what topic this question belongs in so i'll put it here.

i live in chicago and we all know chicago winters are damn cold. i often go out despite this, or because of it. i load my 4x5 linhof and all lenses (schnieder, rodenstock,) in my truck and head off. at day's end i park it in a garage that's only slightly warmer than outside temp, which averages in the 20s and ranges from 0-40

my question is this: does cold weather affect my gear? i realize film is ok out there, but what about lenses: condensation, separation of elements, etc. Any of that i should be worried about? i don't mind bringing it in if doing so will prolong its life, but it's easier to leave it in the truck instead of loading everytime i go shoot.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

jeff ross

[Dave Parker]

I have never had the cold weather affect anything other than my shutters, and it gets damn cold where I live as well, My low this winter has been 37 below zero, and I spent all day shooting that day.

Dave

[jeff ross]

thanks, dave. risking frostbite for a picture. that's passion.

[Greg Lockrey]

I have never had the cold weather affect anything other than my shutters, and it gets damn cold where I live as well, My low this winter has been 37 below zero, and I spent all day shooting that day.

Dave

:eek: I'd bet that if somebody was paying you to do that, you'd be bitching.:D :D

[Dave Parker]

:eek: I'd bet that if somebody was paying you to do that, you'd be bitching.:D :D

I grumbled a bit that day, and I was actually being paid to work on pictures for a Magazine, they wanted images of the various types of wrought Iron gates on homes in NW Montana, but it really was not that bad...

Dave

[Jay W]

It was interesting to read the Antarctica 2007 article on Luminous Landscape. I always figured it was just a matter of time before I'd pick up a "good" digital camera, and I'd eventually migrate that direction. After reading this article and hearing about all the camera failures, it makes me wonder about the current generation of equipment.

As I count it, he says:
-Almost 50 photographers
-3 of 4 Leica M8s died
-6 Canon 1DsMKII quit, 3 came back after drying
-3 Canon 5Ds quit, 1 came back after drying
-2 Canon XTis had LCDs that died
-2 Video cameras died
-7 lenses died

I have much more confidence that my camera gear would not have those types of failures. Much of my gear is manual (can run without batteries), so I suppose I'd be labelled a stone age photographer. Hey, it gets the job done.


Jay

[Dave Parker]

Cold can indeed be a killer on LCD screens, the Liquid freezes, but normally comes back, I know in the past I have had Minolta screens freeze, and when they did come back they had the dreaded bleed problem, but this was a problem Minolta had without cold weather..

Dave

[Greg Lockrey]

I grumbled a bit that day, and I was actually being paid to work on pictures for a Magazine, they wanted images of the various types of wrought Iron gates on homes in NW Montana, but it really was not that bad...

Dave

Thought so.;)

[Jim Jones]

My Leica and Nikon gear worked fine in northern Greenland decades ago. It usually wasn't outside for more than maybe an hour at a time, though. Frequent changes between outside and indoors may be more risky than leaving all mechanical gear outside in extreme cold.

[C. D. Keth]

Prolonged cold should be much better for your gear than alternating between cold and warm. Condensation will hurt most things more than just cold will.

Some shutters can freeze up because the lube gets gummy. I understand shutter can be completely cleaned of lube to prevent this, though it would wear parts more and probably affect speeds, too. I would talk to a pro before believing me on this, of course. All I have is hearsay.

LCDs will freeze up below 10 or so. Usually they will come back to normal. With panasonic video camera LCDs I have never not had them come back to normal, thoguh the first time it froze it scared the poo out of me (the camera didn't belong to me, which made it worse).

Batteries are obviously affected. Battery life generally drops by about a quarter, but can be up to half in really cold temps.

This doesn't apply to still photographers but it is possible for it to get so cold that film in a motion pciture camera gets too stiff to run cleanly through the mechanism and it breaks or jams. The fix is a cover to ehat the camera and magazine. Think of a fitted heated blanket. Unfortunately, this will use even more batteries so you have to pack tons for cold weather shooting.

Other than cold fingers, that's all I can think of to watch for.