Shooting in Low Temperatures

Hey everyone. I am wondering about shooting with a D3100 in cold temperatures. I live in Canada where it has currently been -10C for the last couple of days and I am worried about doing damage to my camera by exposing it to these temperatures. Should I be concerned?

thanks.

J_Murphy said:

Hey everyone. I am wondering about shooting with a D3100 in cold temperatures. I live in Canada where it has currently been -10C for the last couple of days and I am worried about doing damage to my camera by exposing it to these temperatures. Should I be concerned?

thanks.

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As long as it's not too cold (your manual should have it's min. & max. operating temps listed in there), you're fine. One thing I would suggest is to acclimatize your camera while you're out in the cold. Don't use it right away.....wait about 10 or 15 minutes before shooting. Also, keep your batteries warm by keeping them in your pocket near your body. Cold is murder on batteries. When you're done shooting for the day, acclimatize your camera again before you go into a warm interior, so as to prevent your lenses from fogging up.

You should be slightly concerned. I was in Ottawa last week and on Wed and Thurs, it must have been -20 or colder with the wind. My 5100 mis-fired twice. I framed the shot, pressed the shutter button and nothing. I looked at the LCD screen for any warnings while pressing the shutter button again and again, nothing. After a few seconds, the camera fired. Not sure exactly what froze, but something got a little to cold. Other than that, it worked fine. But do keep in mind that Nikon has environmental limits on their cameras for a reason. If you are going to use it in the cold, make sure you dry it out/warm it up when you bring it back inside. You want to let it dry out for a while before turning it back on. Moisture can build up inside and maybe short circuit something.

I might add that my finger was so cold, i could hardly feel the shutter button, so perhaps i was not even depressing it far enough, lol.

not really,, sometimes, if the temperature gets real cold, you will see the camera start to act funny, and flash weird stuff, but turning on/off usually clears. I shoot often down to -10F which way cold.

Sometimes you might find your glass fogging up,, when you come in from the cold, so give the camera gear time to warm back up.. if you have been outside for a long time in the cold.

The old film cameras were famous for working in the cold, the digital not quite as good, but still pretty immune.

Cool..thanks everyone for your responses. Over the last few nights I have been out driving around while taking photos. So, during the really cold nights I just hop out of the car for a few minutes, take my shots and I'm back in the car. From now on, I think I will just avoid being out for long periods of time in really cold temperatures with the camera.

Come on Spring!

When you come in from the cold, zip your camera in a plastic bag until it warms up. The condensation (fog-up) will collect on the bag instead of your camera.

When I am outside in the cold with my camera for extended periods of time, I actually keep my camera inside my jacket, except to shoot. I did this for years without a problem with my film cameras and continued to do the same when I went digital. I have not had any problems doing this with either film or digital. Thisdoes keep the camera from getting too cold, so the battery still works just fine and condensation has not been a problem when I come inside.