A Li-Ion in Winter
Here are some tips for outdoor photography are in the winter. Usually I'll describe how to obtain maximum service life of batteries at low temperatures. The two things are beyond the scope of this Article:
This article will not get into other aspects of outdoor photography, at least not very much.
The information in this article also applies to other battery-powered devices in addition to just cameras. (There is also a section on your car!)
When I onfor this article, I discovered something very interesting: nothing! I can not find anything on the Internet that the tips I'll give you support, and I've never read about it in printed sources. I can not believe that I am the only one who knows this, and it is certainly not a breakthrough scientific discovery. And I can not believe I was the only one who has always tried to use a digital camera in sub sub-zero temperatures has, but perhaps we are so small market, no one bothered topublish this information. Frankly, I think it is unlikely that this has never been published, but I can not find him.
So, let's go. You may need this more of a "myth of view," but you can easily confirm it on your own.
Here's the thing. Electric batteries are much like the old, cranky travelers. They learn slowly and crankier when it's cold.
It does not matter what type of batteries have a primary or rechargeable, carbon or alkaline, nickel metal hydrideor to say lithium-ion, lead-acid car batteries, or, I dare, all batteries to be invented, or probably ever invented in the foreseeable future. They all work a lot better at temperatures closer to normal human body temperature than the temperature of the ice.
Okay, maybe there are some exotic battery that nobody has ever heard outside of the secret laboratory, but all the batteries, probably on the consumer market you will find love warm temperatures. And perhaps a type batteries work best at84.37 degrees Celsius, while batteries prefer a different type of 88.64 degrees, but the point remains that batteries work better near the body temperature.
You can use this easy. If your camera (or any other battery-keep-based device) to be outside in very cold temperatures, you can see that the batteries are exhausted very quickly. Put the camera in the jacket for a few minutes, and the batteries have a much higher fee.
Any battery that generates electricalPower through chemical reactions, and a chemical reaction takes place more efficiently at higher temperatures, to begin to limit the temperature rise of complex chemicals to break down. This limitation of the temperatures are well above body temperature, so do not worry. Just do drop your batteries in a fire and expect them to work better.
So, what can you do about it? Two things, one simple and one with ramifications.
First, you take extra batteries in an inside pocket. (YouDress in layers when you go outdoors in winter weather is not it? Good!) Closer to the skin, the better. I usually carry my extra batteries in my shirt pocket, with at least one sweater and a jacket outside of this. Enter your batteries in an outer bag or backpack. Is that your plan to save the weight and just do not bring any extra batteries. They would not work anyway.
Second, keep your camera as warm as possible, while not actually use. This is how Imentioned above, has consequences. The problem is that if your camera is always on your body temperature will cause condensation on the lenses if you are out there and start to form.
This is while your extra batteries to benefit held at body temperature, the camera itself has problems. Here are a few techniques I use are to achieve a balance between these two requirements.
Keep your camera at a medium temperature and, if possible, Keep the battery warmer than the lens. I hold my camera in the inside pocket of my jacket in the outermost regions, and I think it is the lens-side-up. Normally, my jacket is unzipped outermost, so that the top of the pocket is only slightly warmer than ambient temperature. The end of my camera battery is deep inside a sort of warm-bag while the lens is located outside the cold White Mountain Wilderness.
Replace the batteries during the day, they drive between the wheel> Camera and your pocket. If the battery in my camera to point out that it "dead", I install the extra battery and replace the "dead" in my shirt pocket. Then, when the second battery is "dead", I turn back to the original battery, which is then heated, and magically, no more "dead".
One final note: When you return home, are not cold battery on its charger. Let the batteries warm to room temperature for a few hours before charging them. The suddenChange of temperature from freezing fees, and the sudden flow of current through a cold battery will almost certainly cause permanent damage.
Cameras
While the tips in this article specifically on digital cameras, much of this information also applies to film cameras. Almost every camera manufactured in the last half century, the electronic monitoring of exposure and an electric motor for the shutter. Many also have an electricFilm-advance motor. The batteries, which will work, these features also benefit them, kept warm.
In addition, the film itself operates more efficiently in warmer temperatures. In extremely cold conditions, the photochemical reactions in the film image is not fast enough, and your pictures will be underexposed. And you will not even know that it develops up to. The temperatures at which these are really very noticeable, which is normally far below zeroFahrenheit, but the phenomenon exists.
Thus, your camera will benefit from it, kept warm, like a digital camera.
But it also has the same drawback of condensation on the lens.
A trick I used to use was in extreme cold to keep the lenses in my camera bag at room temperature, and the camera in a jacket pocket. It slows me a bit that I mount a lens before taking a picture, but it was better thanenduring the elements only come home with a roll of underexposed images. Also condensation could form on the viewfinder lens and mirror, but this condensation was not in the path between the lens and the film, so it had no effect on the images.
Other Electronic Widgets
What other devices you use outdoors in winter conditions? Regardless of whether there is a battery, the battery will function better if you keep it warm.
And condensation can not be a problem! Asome condensation can form on the circuit itself, although this is less a problem than you might think. Most consumer electronics devices have a coating on their circuits to protect them from humidity and oxygen, and thus obtain a little treat from condensation. When removing the gadgets that are hot pocket and hold it in the frigid air to use it for one or two minutes, only a few small drops of condensed water. Then, if you back comfortably into the pocket, theCondensation is usually evaporate again.
GPS receiver? Keep it warm, but high enough that there may be a good signal from the satellites. Your body can obscure the satellite signal, especially when the canopy is already weakened the signal. You could try to keep the receiver on a shoulder strap that will keep on the back or shoulder, free from your backpack, under his jacket.
Walkie-talkie? It was good to ride in the pocket of your jacket to keep warm and it isready to use.
Wireless phone? (Why did you bring it into the desert?) I prefer to leave me in my car when I'm hiking. Then I put it in a shirt pocket to warm when I start to drive home. At the time I'm back in civilization and cell phone coverage, it is ready to receive this message of fear from my wife. If you wear it on a hike, please keep it in an inner pocket. (And if you not to rat cancer from the radio energy concerns, keep it in a bag containing at least one inchstay away from the skin, but still close enough to be reasonably warm.)
Start your car during the Cold
Here's a bonus tip on cold batteries. You have already heard it and rejected it as absurd, but it is absolutely right.
It only works if the car is quite old and weak. If this trick will help you, your car, the one on a cold morning, to replace the battery as soon as possible.
But if you're buying a new battery pushes and you're runninglate for work and the car will not start here a way to save the day: Turn on your headlights before you drive.
It sounds catchy, but it actually works. What happens is that the electric current flows through the battery actually heats up the battery. Once heated, the battery produces electricity more efficiently than when it is cold.
You have to be very careful of this trick. The idea is to use some of the energy of the battery to the battery warm, but notDeplete the stored charge in the process. If you crank the starter one last time, you want to be warm and the battery is sufficiently charged, have to start the cold engine.
So, if the first attempt leads to a slow crank, they give up quickly. Turn off the lights for a while - a minute or so it should do - then you turn off the lights and try again the starter.
Note that I said "gone." The parking lights do not draw enough current to the battery to warm to significantlyvery cold day.
So you may ask, why not pull the starter enough electricity to heat the battery? In fact, he is, but at the same time, it is drawing so much charge the battery, enabling them to lead the charge before the battery is efficient enough warmed to the engine.
Use the headlights.
If you try this for two or three cycles, and the engine still does not start, they give up and cancel the jumper cables. (You jumper cable to hand, is not it?)
IfShe had used this trick even once, you get a new battery. Today!
Examples
They can also be samples of my digital photos taken in cold conditions, often seen far below zero Fahrenheit, in http://www.HikingWithChuck.com/DownloadsPicsWinter.htm. I wonder how many of these pictures I would have if I had missed it, my batteries go dead!
