24,000 ft. and digital

I am planning on a climbing trip in May to summit a 24,000 ft. peak.

It has been a few years since going anywhere near this altitude and

since then all of my photographic gear has drastically changed. Now

I shoot almost exclusively digital. I still have a Canonet

rangefinder for film.

<p>My questions is, considering the obvious need for attention to my

own safety and pack weight, how could I expect a digital to perform

in subzero high altitude situations? At such a height I doubt my

thinking skills could even figure out how to set exposure on a manual

camera. I prefer the handling and processing of .RAW from a dSLR and

a small prime (eg. 28/2.8) but worry about the weight and battery

life. I like the size and weight of a P&S digicam at the expense of

quality and reliability. The rangefinder and provia would better the

dSLR in quality and reliability but is a handful in tricky lighting.

<p>Have any climbers made the transition to digital in this type of

environment?

<p>Does any one have any insights?

<p>Would the altitude be a concern for the digital cameras (as I've

heard it is for disk drives)?<div></div>

I've never been nearly that high, but I've spent a lot of time above 14,000 feet in the cont. US, and the only comment I can make for sure is that I could not even imagine taking a full sized SLR/DSLR in my summit pack. Nothing to do with performance, batteries, reliability, micro-drives or anything except pure weight and bulk. Maybe I'd take the kit to various base camps (there was a very nice feature article here on PN a while back about a Himalayan trek with a DSLR and the issues it brought up), but on summit day/s for me it is my Ricoh GR1s point and shoot. I think it is the ultimate solution (a mountaineers favorite because of the 28/2.8 lens, aperture priority or full program, sticky exposure compensation, great lens, tiny size, metal body...lots of info here on the web about it). Personally I would take even a cheap plastic p&s to the summit before an SLR. Even my Canonet feels heavy and bulky in comparison, though it would certainly be better than the SLR. A digicam would be an interesting idea if it was small. It seems to me that at those altitudes the very success of reaching the summit is at stake here. Better to have nice pictures of a successful trip than awesome pictures from 22,000 feet and below. Just my thoughts. Have a great trip and I wish you great pictures, safety, and an awesome view from the top.

 

Del

Once voltage drops in your battery, you should have some spare batteries (or a means to keep the battery warmed up) or you will have a fine desktop paperweight (i.e., your digital camera.)

 

 

 

 

You might consider a Nikon FM2 or FM2n body, and a small zoom lens: batteries or not, the camera will work. The only down side is if the temperature is really nasty, i.e., in the minus 30 degree F range, you have to advance the film slowly.

Disk drives will crash due to the thin air, I saw a microdrive becoming unusuable at 16.000 feet. IBM said they are fine up to about 12.000ft, but not above. Batteries will also not work very long in the temperatures up there. Although I have never been that high I met some people who were and they said they were not able to do anything up there except for going down again. So an all-automatic camera might be preferred to the Nikon FM, which is nice, but also quite heavy. Remember that you also have to take off the frozen gloves in order to use it. The same would be true for the canonet - usable up to 20.000ft I guess but not much above that.

<p>

I would look for one of those Ricoh P&S cameras with either the 21 or 28mm lens, alternatively something like the yashica T4. Remember to keep it warm/close to the body and take a second battery.

<p>

I hope you'll make it to the top, and come back unharmed with some great memories!

Another thing to consider is that in cold, dry conditions, static electricity can build up and the resulting sparks expose the film. You should advance the film slowly to minimize the risk, something that is only possible with a manual camera, not one with a motor drive. You should read Galen Rowell's books, he was not only a phenomenal photographer, but also a world-class mountaineer.

I would forget digital. The power problems alone would be a headache.

 

Unless you have photographed alot at that altitude, I would go with

color print film over slide film. You will have a greater exposure

latitude and you won't have to burn as much film in braketing. I have

not been to that height, but after spending a lot of time at 3,000m

in the Japanese alps and then moving to a completely different area

at 4,000m in Tibet, I was quite confused by the difference in the

quality of light. It was tough to judge contrast and brightness.

 

I would look for a camera with auto and manual exposure. Especially

one that will work if the batteries go - you can always use the sunny

16 rule. Even badly exposed pictures are better than none at all. You

can also pack a tiny light meter. I prefer handheld meters over

camera meters. Gossen and Sekonic both have good tiny meters.

Practice before you go. You will find after using a meter for a while

it is possible to guess exposures for certain situations quite

accurately and the meter is just varifying the noddle is working.

 

A Nikonos is a care free climbing camera. Just need to equialize the

pressure from time to time - just remove the lens. But they are built

like a tank. But not everyone likes guess-timation focusing, but this

is not a problem for landscapes. Nikon FM3 as mentioned above would

be a good camera. But both these will be heavy.

 

Whatever you do, have a great time and come back safe. As most

climbers know, it isn't getting to the top that is the goal, it is

returning to the bottom.

Take a look of the link below,

 

http://luminous-landscape.com/locations/wilderness.shtml

Julius' link is to the same article I was referring to earlier. Keep in mind, however, that once again the author did not take his DSLR above base camp, and even mentions that he couldn't imagine doing it because of the weight and how hard the climbing is at those altitudes.

He left his Apacer CD burner at base camp every day, but took the 10D with him.<p>

In an update to his article, at <a href="http://www.maion.com/photography/weblog/2004-01-29.html">http://www.maion.com/photography/weblog/2004-01-29.html</a>, he says "I will use the same solution on my next trips." Sounds like he was pretty happy with it!

I only skimmed the other replies so my apologies if I have duplicated anything here.

I've not climbed to that height but I have done a lot of snowboarding at high altitudes and sub-zero temperatures.

 

Digital kit usually just cannot hack it. You'll find that your batteries drain in minutes not hours due to the extreme temperature drop. If you do take digi gear then keep the batteries on the inside of your jacket, near your armpits to keep them warm & only pop them in the camera when you need to use them.

 

My experience is that my digi gear dies very quickly but my manual gear just goes & goes (Hasselblad or canon 35mm). A good pointer is to have thin gloves under your normal gloves to handle the camera with - I know that you can't set a camera for love nor money in snowboarding gloves!!

 

Another tip is to watch our for exposed metal parts on camera's if you handle them without gloves.... fingers can stick to metal as I'm sure you know.

 

A handy item would also be a couple of ND grad filters to take the sky down a few stops as the strength of the light up there can be too much for many films/cameras.

 

All the best

 

Gavin

I have no idea if this information is current, but here goes ....

 

Back in the old days of manual cameras, I read that for photography in extreme cold, such as mountaineering, it was possible to "weatherize" Nikon lenses by replacing the grease-lubricant with graphite. i.e. the grease could solidify in extreme-cold, whereas the graphite would still work even in the extreme-cold.

 

I couldn't find anything about this on the Internet, and it might be irrelevant in the digital age. Perhaps ask the Nikon service centre.

 

For those who can remember, back in the late 70's, when Nikon's FM and FE were the state-of-the-art, Nikon used to run advertisements showing the use of these cameras on mountaineering expeditions -- although the cameras could have been weatherised for these expeditions.