Shooting in winter

[Lukáš Markvart]

Hello!

I am preparing our scarlet for shooting in very cold conditions. It will be in a skiing resort. We have a scene where we will have to stay on the piste for whole night. Average temperature in night should not go below -10°C.

Can you please advice me, if there could be some issue that I may encounter during operating the camera?

I know one will be batteries, I´m counting that they will last maybe half the time as they do usual because of the cold. The second thing I´m not sure about is the camera sensor temperature. Maybe it will be ok, because the fan may just relax, but I have no option to try now whether the camera will like it or not.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

Some useful info here...

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?153833-Weapon-in-very-cold-conditions&highlight=

 

[Bobby Jahrig]

Winter sports and skiing is mostly what I shoot in the winter. I was out with a Raven all last month and it did really well.

I did a black shade out in the cold before I started shooting and then tried to let the camera run for a minute before rolling to get the sensor indicators green. Sometimes it took a while but I never got any bad noise or weirdness.

The cold is going to kill your batteries fast, hand warmers taped to batteries will really help.

Also a waterproof cover and screen/lens hoods are good if it is snowing. I had an old gortex coat I chopped up and sewed into a camera jacket for really heinous weather but I know you can buy them.

Good luck!

 

[Josh Melin]

I had a shoot just last year on a remote mountain range in British Columbia with similar temperatures. Anticipating the same battery issue I brought 8 bricks as we were going to be there for 6 days with no access to heat other than our bodies. We did fly in a 2000 watt Honda gen to charge at night when it was its coldest. We comfortably pulled off 8-10 hour shoot days on 4 -5 bricks. Granted we had blue bird skies so the sun bouncing off the glacier was enough to make me strip layers at times. I ran test with hand warmers by taping them to batteries setting them in a Yeti soft cooler and sticking them in the freezer and they had no effect. I brought a ton of them anyway and just ended up bringing them back. I found unless they are constantly agitated they don't produce heat.

As for our dragon it did great with no issues. 7" monitor no issues. Basically everything I anticipated going wrong I doubled up on but it was better safe than sorry. Best of luck on your shoot!

 

[Lukáš Markvart]

Hey guys!
Thanks for the answers, this will be my first time so I wanted to be prepared! Really, two days ago I met the director and he was screaming on me after like one second we met, I really need all going smooth