Temperature and condensation concerns with cold weather photography

[James C.]

The temperature here today dropped down to 37ºF.

I have seen a couple of videos, and last year read a B&H Photo article, on the dangers of taking one's camera out into cold weather and then bringing it back into a warm home too soon, causing damaging condensation to form in either the camera body, the lens, or both.

There are procedures to slowly acclimate your camera back up to room temperature to prevent this, but it can take a couple of hours.

What I have NOT heard from anyone yet, is at what temperature do you have to start worrying about condensation? When it's 40º outside? 35º? 32º (i.e., freezing)? Below freezing?

I wanted to go out and do some bird photography by my house this afternoon, but I was worried that I might have a condensation problem if I was too quick to bring everything back inside when I was done shooting.

Does anyone have any quantifiable benchmarks on temperature thresholds for this issue?

Thanks.

 

[Dan291]

Most of my shooting life, although I’ve never seen a prescribed temp, usually if I see my breath.
I leave my bags closed near a warm air source for a while before I open the bag.
If I’m out with just a camera alone, I wrap it in a towel outside and repeat above.
If I’ll want to get to processing some shots right away, I remove the card(s) outside, put into an inside pocket till warm.
I haven’t screwed up any equipment this way in about 48 years and I definitely have the potential to screw up things.

 

[Steve]

Most of my shooting life, although I’ve never seen a prescribed temp, usually if I see my breath.
I leave my bags closed near a warm air source for a while before I open the bag.
If I’m out with just a camera alone, I wrap it in a towel outside and repeat above.
If I’ll want to get to processing some shots right away, I remove the card(s) outside, put into an inside pocket till warm.
I haven’t screwed up any equipment this way in about 48 years and I definitely have the potential to screw up things.

This ^^

 

[Woodpecker]

If I am going out in the cold and come back I am usually patient - and cold - enough myself that I just put the bag down get myself heated up and changed. By the time I reach the point to get back to my gear again the temperature difference has reached a point that it isn't an issue anymore. This might work only because here we don't get this kind of extreme temperatures any more. Times where the ponds nearby were frozen to an extent that kids used them as a kind of natural icehockey stadium are decades ago.

The only time I had real issues with condensation was "on a different level of temperature overall". After spending a couple of hours in a shopping mall in Dubai taking photos I went outside to take photos of the big water fountains the gear was wet the moment I took it out of the bag (due to the brutal air conditioning they do inside the malls). It was so bad, that the only thing I could do was going back to the hotel, dry all the stuff off and come back the next day walking to the site in order to give the gear time to acclimatize...

 

[Warren D]

It's more about moisture than strictly temperature. I've been in places where the humidity was near 100% (dew points in the mid-70's) and a camera and/or lens from a 69 degree a/c space would be covered in condensation in seconds.
Anyway, I usually leave my gear in a bag. If I've been out shooting for hours (for example, I was out shooting steam trains on a snowy day with temps hovering in the upper teens) I'll put the gear in the bag in the trunk which gets a little heat from the cabin and when I get home, the bag is brought inside the house. I leave it sit for 3-4 hours or more before opening the bag. Once the gear has acclimated, I'll remove memory cards or change batteries, etc.
One thing you never want to do is remove/change a lens if the gear is cold and you are in a warm space. Condensation on the outside of gear isn't the best but you never want any inside! The insides will take longer to warm up than the exterior!
Going from warm to cold is not as much of an issue except if the temperature differential is great in which case having the gear in the trunk for a while first helps. If I'm going out first thing in the morning and I know temps will be cold, I often put the gear in the car the night before (I have a garage and don't recommend this if you are not in a secure location) so that it is maybe half way between room temp and outdoor temp. In the winter, with temps around freezing, I actually find having some residual heat in the gear helpful especially when shooting in humid areas. I've had lenses frost up at 34 degrees. Humidity in the air is just enough to drop the temp of the front element and allow frost. Using a lens cap between shots seems to help, but only if the situation allows.