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Lessons Learned on Assignment: Shooting in Extreme Cold
By David Duchemin
By far, the vast majority of my assignment work takes place closer to the equator than to the Arctic Circle. I am more comfortable battling
the heat and the challenges associated with shooting in high temperatures and humidity than I am in the cold. In fact, it's been years since
I shot in the cold and the snow. All that changed when my favorite client asked me to shoot in Mongolia this February, rather than
Thailand as planned.
The challenges associated with shooting in the cold are unique and demand the same attention as shooting in the heat. There are three main concerns:
making sure you keep working, making sure your cameras keep working, and making sure the images look great.
YOU
At what point you seize up in the cold and stop functioning altogether is a personal thing. If you grew up in Southern California, you're likely to
have a much lower tolerance for the cold than someone who grew up in Churchill, Manitoba. But at a certain point, cold is just cold and you must
dress for it. You can't work or think if you're not warm, but you if you're so bundled up that you lose your mobility, it becomes equally impossible.
The secret is dressing in layers. Start with good polypro or expedition–weight underwear, both tops and bottoms. Then, good layers of fleece and possibly
a down parka or Gore-tex shell to cap it off. Think in layers, and buy quality. Make sure your feet are in liners, heavy wool or fleece socks, and good,
insulated, waterproof boots. Be sure you've got gloves that allow you to work without removing them. On the warmer days of this assignment, I wore
LowePro's shooting gloves and swear by them. When the temperatures dropped in early morning and late afternoon, I wore a pair of ice-climbing gloves;
they are very warm but also very agile. Lastly, wear a hat, sunglasses and a good sunscreen if you're in the snow and sun. Just because it is cold
doesn't mean you won't burn.
YOUR CAMERA
Your digital camera is vulnerable in a couple places, creating three possible unique challenges: drained batteries, frozen lubricants, and condensation.
Battery life can be extended by keeping the camera warm and inside your jacket, but if you're shooting a lot you can only do this for so long. Eventually,
you'll need some spare batteries. I carry my spares in an inside pocket when possible or in a small LowePro pouch with an activated Hot Pocket inside to
keep them warm. Heat Factories (or similar brand) hand warmers are excellent for tossing into a bag to keep things warm; a couple extras don't hurt to
keep the fingers warm either.
As for the coldest extremes and the possibility of lubricants freezing, the best thing you can do is check your camera's manual for the operating parameters
and stay within them. If you're really hard-core and think you can shoot in temps colder than -40°C (which is the lowest temp at which my 5D bodies are
documented to operate), then you can get the body polar-oiled at an authorized service centre.
The other inconvenience and danger is the movement from cold environments into hot ones, which causes condensation—at best this just means you need to wait
until the camera warms up and you can see through the lens again; at worst the moisture causes mold in your lenses or shorts out the electronics. Condensation
is avoidable if you give it some forethought. The best action is simply leaving the camera in the cold. If you can safely leave it in a camera bag or StormCase
out in the cold, you'll avoid having the cold body and lens meeting the hot air and condensing. If you must go inside, put the camera in a kitchen garbage
bag and seal it after pushing all the air out. Now tuck it into your camera bag and let it warm up before you remove it. The bag will also prevent any
condensation you'd otherwise face from freezing once you head back out into the cold. Adding a small silica dessicant packet to the bag doesn't hurt either.
YOUR IMAGES
The last concern is making your images look great. The cold doesn't affect this, but the snow will. Your camera meter is a pretty sophisticated little thing,
but it can still be fooled by bright snow. Your camera wants to render what it sees as medium grey, so will want to underexpose snow scenes by at least one f-stop.
Using your exposure compensation and setting it somewhere from +1 to +2 will force the meter to render whites white and prevent your shadows from plugging up too much.
Cold weather and snow can create some great conditions for spectacular image-making, and with a little preparation, there's no reason you shouldn't be out there creating
some unforgettable photographs.
To see some of the images from my trip to Mongolia, please visit:
http://www.pixelatedimage.com/fluid2/
David Duchemin Bio
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