Problems With Cold?

[Dave Weber]

Yesterday we were shooting in about 40 degree weather. After about 3 hours of shooting driving shots, the camera just locked. No control from car, no control from buttons. I had to pull the power and do a hard reboot. I noticed that the camera was ice cold and wondered if that might be the cause. The same thing happened right at the end of the day also. Same ending. Hard reboot and ice cold. Other than that it was an uneventful day. Anyone else have a problem like this?

 

[Steve Freebairn]

What were the fans set on? Was the camera protected at all while on your rig? I can easily see a problem if there was a lot of wind and only being 40 degrees outside if the fans were on a weird setting. I've had issues when the RED One was too cold, it normally keeps it's own heat pretty well though.

 

[Brent Carter]

I was involved with the temp chamber testing on the RED ONE. Camera booted, operated, and recorded at -28º C. That is as cold as we could get the chamber.

BC

 

[T. vd Hoff]

How could cold be an issue? Isn't electronic stuff supposed to run better the cooler it gets?
Like PC geeks using cryogenics to freeze their computers?

 

[Poi Boy]

40 degrees is not cold but if you factor in wind chill from driving.. maybe a different story. You need a camera cozy.
Aloha
-A

 

[Darren Orange]

Well depends on water.....cold can cause issues with air water content formation of water and things like that, dry cold yes. But don't also forget that COLD can stop other things from being able to operate correctly, with the complexity inside RED there could easily be things that will just stop if it gets too cold, like the responsiveness in the Sensor likely could get affected. Just thoughts.

 

[Nathan Garofalos]

I live in Tahoe shoot up here in the cold all the time with a RED. What I've found that works best for me is to use the hot hands packs that get warm when you expose them to air, just put them on the top of the body. There have been several times when that wasn't enough to keep the camera running and I've had to use a hairdryer to heat the camera between takes...

 

[Gert-Jan]

Well depends on water.....cold can cause issues with air water content formation of water and things like that, dry cold yes. But don't also forget that COLD can stop other things from being able to operate correctly, with the complexity inside RED there could easily be things that will just stop if it gets too cold, like the responsiveness in the Sensor likely could get affected. Just thoughts.

Yes, it can affect the sensor, but that should be in a positive way, the colder something gets, the better its electric conductivity becomes, the reason why machines like the Large Hadron Collider work at 3 degrees Kelvin, equivalent -270 Celsius. The problem with low temperatures in the outside world is that the air contains water vapour which condensates at lower temperatures, which can result in short circuiting in electronic equipment. Short explanation about when condensation occurs:

Condensation

Condensation is the process whereby water vapour in the atmosphere is returned to its original liquid state. In the atmosphere, condensation may appear as clouds, fog, mist, dew or frost, depending upon the physical conditions of the atmosphere. Condensation is not a matter of one particular temperature but of a difference between two. Condensation of water vapour occurs when the temperature of air is lowered to its dew point.

All air contains water vapour of varying quantities. The lower the air temperature, the smaller the maximum possible capacity for vapour. When air is cooled, relative humidity increases, until at a particular temperature, called the dew point, the air becomes saturated. Further cooling below the dew point will induce condensation of the excess water vapour.

The temperature of the dew point will depend upon the absolute content of water vapour, that is the absolute humidity, measured in g/m3 (grams per cubic metre). The dew point of humid air will be higher than the dew point of dry air. Both air temperature and absolute humidity will determine what type of condensation will occur when the air is cooled. If air in contact with the ground is cooled to its dew point, dew or frost will form, dew if the point is above 0°C, or frost if it is below 0°C. Cooling of a larger layer of air near to the ground may produce mist of fog, which freezes if the dew point is below 0°C. Air that is cooled to its dew point by rising and expansion will condense to form clouds. Above 0°C, small droplets of water are formed. Condensation may also result in ice crystals at temperature well below 0°C. When temperatures are near or a little below 0°C, supercooled water droplets can form.]The temperature of the dew point will depend upon the absolute content of water vapour, that is the absolute humidity, measured in g/m3 (grams per cubic metre). The dew point of humid air will be higher than the dew point of dry air. Both air temperature and absolute humidity will determine what type of condensation will occur when the air is cooled. If air in contact with the ground is cooled to its dew point, dew or frost will form, dew if the point is above 0°C, or frost if it is below 0°C. Cooling of a larger layer of air near to the ground may produce mist of fog, which freezes if the dew point is below 0°C. Air that is cooled to its dew point by rising and expansion will condense to form clouds. Above 0°C, small droplets of water are formed. Condensation may also result in ice crystals at temperature well below 0°C. When temperatures are near or a little below 0°C, supercooled water droplets can form.

From: http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/eae/Weather/Older/Condensation.html

Nonetheless, the camera shouldn't be ice cold I think (I don't have RED to bad...) as the camera produces its own heat and if condensation has occured, you should at least notice it on the outside, and water should have poured out of the camera. Condensation can be prevented by having good insulation on all electronic parts.

 

[bryanpapierski]

im getting nervous. i may be shooting a feature this winter up north in michigan and 70% takes place out side, snowmobiles, car chases,snow, sleet, rain u know michigan weither ... what should i do?

 

[Steve Freebairn]

im getting nervous. i may be shooting a feature this winter up north in michigan and 70% takes place out side, snowmobiles, car chases,snow, sleet, rain u know michigan weither ... what should i do?

Get an artic bag if it will be really cold and monitor the camera for temperature.

 

[Colin Hubick]

in -38 celsius weather (-45 celsius with wind chill) we used a porta brace cover with hot pockets inside, and this solved all of our cold weather shooting problems. This was last winter, before a lot of the enhancements to the Red with regards to cold weather shooting were added. I found it was more about keeping the wind off the camera than it was being exposed to direct cold. In any case I would strongly recommend doing this as it keeps snow off the camera as well.

cheers
Colin

 

[nacamera]

40 degrees is not cold but if you factor in wind chill from driving.. maybe a different story. You need a camera cozy.
Aloha
-A

Poi,
Being from Hawaii I'll cut you some slack, but wind chill has absolutely ZERO effect on any inanimate object. The temperature of a camera standing still in 30 degree weather is the same as a camera driving at 100 MPH in 30 degree weather----It's 30 degrees...Now air circulation taking away some residual heat that the camera is generating, that's another matter...Here in Wisconsin we take Wind Chill VERY seriously!

 

[Chris Parker]

what portabrace fits nicely on the red?

 

[Poi Boy]

Hey Bob,
Thanks for the inanimate explanation, I 'm not sure I buy it but OK. I think back to to when I used to shoot skiing stuff and the camera always seemed colder after a long run.
Aloha
-A

 

[Dave Weber]

More of a question .....

More of a question .....

This was more of a question than what i thought was a problem. The cold was the only thing i could think of that might cause a problem.

But as I can see from Brent at RED's post, it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Tony McGrath]

I just shot a feature - The Loneliest Road In America - mostly in the high desert of Nevada. The camera consistently shut down at 15 degrees F. It would take about 5 or 6 minutes to heat it up in the car to reboot. Then it would shut down again 30-40 minutes later, even with a blanket wrapped around it. The camera did this all night, several nights in a row.

We also had problems with overheating during the day in the desert. Same thing - we had to cool it down to re-boot. The plastic around the battery connectors started to melt, making them inoperable. By the final day we were running off inverters because only 1 of 3 batteries still worked. Red replaced them when we got back to LA, which was nice of them. But they have to work on the quality of their accessories. Alot of what they sell is junk. The top-handle of our camera snapped off when I picked it up one day. The camera dropped onto rocks.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Not cold here yet... But 18ºF (-8º C) early this morning. No troubles and shooting to RED drive. I will be shooting in much colder environs soon.

 

[William Wedig]

Not cold here yet... But 18ºF (-8º C) early this morning. No troubles and shooting to RED drive. I will be shooting in much colder environs soon.

How'd your cold shooting go? I have some car mount stuff I have to shoot in Scranton PA in February. Average temp from 37F to 20F dipping down into the teens. Seems high to me but that's what weather.com and accuweather said.

 

[Jeremy Wiles]

Typically the first thing to go are the batteries, not the camera. I was shooting at 13,500 feet on Mt. Ararat in Turkey when all my batteries froze. Then my generator blew up all the chargers when it surged with power. Nightmare!

I slept with the batteries at night like a chicken over her eggs, but they never came back to life until i went back down the mountain to a warmer altitude. One of the best options is to put a bunch of handwarmers in your camera bag overnight and the start of each day.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

How'd your cold shooting go? I have some car mount stuff I have to shoot in Scranton PA in February. Average temp from 37F to 20F dipping down into the teens. Seems high to me but that's what weather.com and accuweather said.

I have not done the actual real shooting in the cold just yet. Only one such job lined up and it was postponed du to weather last week, now they're talking about doing it January 5th. However, it did get real cold here yesterday, so I played with my RED early this morning. Spent about 2 hours total outdoors with it. Temp when I started was -9F/-23C and -6F/-21C when I finished. I gave the camera roughly 20 minutes in the cold to acclimate itself. Used the 18-50 lens. Camera powered up fine, LCD worked OK. Batteries were warm to start and worked OK. Battery powering the camera was in my coat pocket, attached to the battery belt clip. The other battery was in another coat pocket. Only one battery swap during the outdoor time. I quit when I ran the second battery down. No camera issues, shooting to CF the whole time. I did have some issues with the LCD (RED 5.6") at the start, but it seemed to warm up a bit after a few minutes. I did not try the EVF, I may do that tonight as I want to try some other things.

Jeremy, sorry about your misfortunes with the batteries and generator. Just for future reference, keep your batteries warm. But I think you know that now. :biggrin: It doesn't take much to freeze batteries and the RED bricks don't seem to generate any serious amount of heat on their own with the power draw from the camera. Warming them up can be a real problem too. And I don't recommend setting them near a fire! Also, if you are ever powering sensitive gear with a generator, put some kind of power conditioner or at least a surge protector in between the genny and your gear!

I like to keep the batteries in a thermal bag or cooler with hand-warmers and other items that generate or retain warmth. Or in a vehicle or shelter that can be kept warm if possible.