Re: Yellowstone DLWS Review Part II
Scott asked for a little info on cold weather and cameras, so here it is.
The camera's all handled the cold perfectly. Both Nikon and Cannon shooters were on the trip, and there were no major problems. One of the Cannon shooters did have a little trouble when we were up at the canyon. The morning we were up there, it was 30 below, and the LCD that shows the exposure values didn't want to update. I assume it was because of the cold. Other than that, there were no camera problems on the trip.
Batteries held up great in the cold. I shot about 6 full cards every day, and never got below a half charge on the battery, so I didn't have to get the spare out of my coat pocket. (I shoot RAW on my D2Xs, so a full 8gb card gets me about 350 photos, so 6 cards is about 2100 shots a day)
Obviously, condensation was a major concern, but we had so many layers of clothing (more on that later) on that we always kept the heat turned off in the snowcoaches, and sometimes cracked the windows open to keep the temperature inside down. And when we returned to the hotel at night, we had all of the equipment back in the camera bags before we went inside, and when we got to the rooms, we cracked the zippers open to allow the equipment to slowly rise to room temperature before we cleaned our equipment. I was up there a day before the workshop started, and went to the Wolf and Grizzly Center and forgot to crack the zippers when I got back to the room. 4 hours later when I opened the camera bag, the equipment was still very cold, so cracking the zippers a little is very important.
We shot while it was snowing one day, and since the cameras had cooled off to the outside temperature before we got out of the snowcoaches, the snow just sat on the camera and didn't melt. We all carried an extra hand towel from the hotel to place over the camera when we weren't shooting, and we used it to dab up any snow that had accumulated when we got back on the snowcoach.
In that kind of cold weather, dressing in layers was extremely important. I had underarmor coldgear long underwear, and insulated ski pants on my legs, and underarmor coldgear long-sleeve t-shirt, a regular t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a winter jacket with removable liner on as well. I also had an underarmor hood and a baseball cap for my head. More important than all of that is your boots and gloves. I had boots rated for 25 below, and I had a pair of gloves with the fingers cut out that has a mitten-like flap that you can put over the fingers when you aren't shooting, which I liked because you can feel all of the camera controls when you are shooting and keep your fingers warm when you aren't.
The bottom line is that you have to dress in layers in that kind of weather, and if you can function in the cold, your camera will do just fine.
