Left Camera in Car Overnight ...17 Degrees

<p>Has anyone heard this one before? In the haste of Christmas shopping I forgot to bring my Canon 5D in from the car while unloading Christmas presents. The temperature dropped to 17 degree F that night. Well I remembered the next morning and brought my bag in and let it defrost. I expected the battery to be drained and put it in the recharger after everything warmed up but it wouldn't recharge. Not a huge surprise. But I went to Penn Camera and got a new battery and low and behold the camera was semi frozen (no pun intended) as well.<br>

I had some functions but no LCD display, no menu ... only the display on top near the shutter release button. I fiddled around with it, tried to re-install the firmware from a flash card, but that was no use because I had no menu. I ended up leaving it off a Penn Camera to send to Canon for repair.<br>

Okay, I know I shouldn't have left it in the car in that kind of weather. But on the other hand, my car is little more than computer chips these days and it was in the same weather. Does anyone have any insight or experience with this?<br>

Thanks,<br>

Lucky</p>

<p>You should have wrapped uit up in a quilt for 12+ hours to allow a slow warm up without condensation. Condensation on the inside is enough to destroy one of these electronic marvels.</p>

 

<p>"brought my bag in and let it defrost"<br>

Do you mean you left it sealed in the bag for a few hours and let the camera temp equalize with room temp? If so, it really should be okay. I've never left my gear overnight in a freezing car but have spend hours shooting below freezing as well as hours sitting in a cold trunk. No problems other than short battery life and LCD spaz outs.</p>

<p>Well now you have a great excuse to buy a 5DII.</p>

<p>I actually let the bag just sit on the dining room table for an entire day before trying to put everything back into operation. And yes, it was a good excuse to buy a 40D (sorry not a 5dII), but with a 17-55 2.8, while waiting for my 5D to be repaired. :)</p>

<p>Seems odd. I've left mine in the vehicle overnight. Used it within a couple of hours of getting it inside.</p>

<p>I don't take new cameras out in the cold (Since I live in the Canadian rockies this is a frequent occurance). You must watch for the warm up and condensation - a quilt is a good idea, I use a cold (32F) garage. I use an EOS 1V down to -25C (approx -18F) and have never had a problem. Below this I use an old F1N which I have used happily in -40C (also -40F). I know Digital works fine as I know people who use the EOS1N IIN and II to shoot ski racing to about -25C. It sound like a water damage (condensation) problem. By the way the F1N is not supposed to work below -30C as the shutter mechanism oil is supposed to freeze but I have never had an issue with two bodies used in these conditions for over 15 years. They don't make them like they used to!</p>

<p>I keep a zip lock bag in my car just in case this happens. I put the camera inside the plastic bag removing as much air as possible before I bring it into the house. I have never had a serious problem when I have done this.</p>

<p>I couldn't understand your problem. Here on the Falkland Islands we cosider 17° to be quite balmy. Then I realised that you meant Farenheit not Celsius. Ooh, thats quite chilly!</p>

<p>Don't forget that when the camera's are shipped from the factory they are not kept in a nice warm place. I am sure they are subjected to freezing cold as well as blistering heat.</p>

<p>I regularly use my Rebel XS in temperatures between -20 and -30 degrees Celsius and have never had any problems as a result.<br>

I have a ziplock bag with two little packets of silica gel taped inside. When moving from a cold to a warm place, I put the camera in, push out as much air as possible, and then close the bag.<br>

So far, I have had no problems.</p>

<p>Lucky, I also have to say that the response of your 5D to the temperature and handling you describe seems odd. I recently did two jobs for a major daily (photographing a cabbage farmer and his frozen crop and later an ice rink), both of which involved working in cold temperatures (the cabbage shoot was in the low 20s with a freakin' 30-mile-an-hour wind near Geneva, NY) and having to dash inside occasionally without time to adjust either my 5D or 10D to the change. There was no problem with either body or any lens. Here in northern New York, shooting in those conditions is routine. Should I consider myself "lucky"?</p>

<p>Yeah, seems odd. I've often had my 5D and 20D in low temp conditions, mountaineering in the Canadian Rockies. No problems. </p>

<p>check the faq at bryan and cherry alexander photography. They use Canon camera digital and film at much much lower temps than 99.999999% of us will ever experience much less shoot in.<br /><a href="http://www.arcticphoto.co.uk/faq.htm">http://www.arcticphoto.co.uk/faq.htm</a></p>

<p>By the way, my Son used a 5D and a 30D in a pretty hard rain and mid 40 degree F for about 6 hours a while back with no problems. I think sometimes we baby our equipment a little too much.</p>

<p>Ditto all the "17F isn't that cold" responses. I regularly cold-soak my 20D and 40D to lower temperatures than that. During the winter here in Wisconsin, I'll reguarly leave everything but the batteries and cards in my car for days on end just to avoid the hassle of sealing everything up to let it warm up without condensation forming.</p>

<p>As a former resident of Central Maine you certainly don't want to bring an cold, unprotected camera into a warm house but I found leaving it zipped up in a padded camera bag was all the protection a cold camerea needed. Just don't open the bag for a few hours.</p>

<p>This is almost certainly caused by condensation in the camera after bringing it straight inside from the car. You may get lucky and the camera may start working again once the condensation has dried out.<br>

In future, take a sealable plastic bag out to the car and put your camera gear in it before bringing it inside the house. Make sure the bag has an airtight seal. Leave it for a few hours to get to room temperature then open the bag.... all should work perfectly.</p>

<p>While not an answer to your problem, I have experienced issues with LCD displays when heated and cooled where they show no display for some time (weeks in one case) after the extreme of temperature. Looking at a few LCD display datasheets online I see minimum operating temperatures from 0C to -40C so I can't say that this is definitely the problem, but it fits in with my experience.</p>

<p>Unless the camera was plagued with moisture, it should be fine. For the past few years I have taken my camera with me for winter camping in January where it never hit seventeen degrees over a long weekend. (I did take my batteries out and keep them in my sleeping bag at night --or inner coat pocket when the camera was not in use during the day--just to keep them alive.) The camera worked fine during the entire time, and when I got home, it gradually warmed up in the house and continues to operate today.</p>

<p>Thanks to everyone for your responses. It is entirely possible that the trouble was unrelated to the cold. In any event, it had been several days, so I sent it off to Canon. I look forward to getting it back in a few weeks.</p>

<p>WOW. That stinks. Ive left my camera gear out, and frequently take it camping in -20 and below temps without any side effects, even after bringing it inside from the cold. Hopefully Canon takes care of it for you............</p>

<p>I, too, have frequently left a variety of cameras (D70, D200, D300, uncountable P&S's) overnight in cold cars (probably as low as 10-15 degrees F) with nary a hiccup in performance. I do try to let them warm up inside the camera bag for a few hours, but it sounds like you did that as well. Any camera that won't perform after the treatment you describe should be considered unreliable at best. I suspect there is something else going on. Curious as to what Canon repair finds.</p>

<p>The only problem I have ever had related to extreme cold is zapping a couple of batteries. After heavy use in 20 oF temps, they would never hold more than about a 30% charge. I have experienced condensation problems taking a 30D from a very cold air-conditioned car out into 100 oF+ temps with extreme humitidy on the Texas gulf coast. A Sigma lens fogged up inside and reported connection problems for several days until it completely dried out. But the camera worked fine after it warmed up and I put on another lens (a Canon 50mm F1.4).</p>

<p>This is not talking camera, however, it does related to electronics getting wet and drying out. I have dropped my cell phone in the toilet, (luckily clean water still), I have taken my phone out, removed the battery immediately in an effort to keep volts from destroying the electronics, opened it up and taken a hair dryer on low to carefully slowly dry it out, then left it sit on the table overnight apart.</p>

<p>It worked. It also worked on my nieces phone when she dropped it in the toilet also.</p>

<p>don't know why this type of tretment would not be usuable on the camera.</p>

<p>This should not happen due to exposure to such relatively mild temperatures. If you let the camera warm up slowly in its bag then there should be no damage. I haven't always let my cameras warm long enough before taking them out and apart from the condensation they've worked correctly.</p>

<p>I guess this is one of those things that the camera companies protect themselves from when they write that the operation temperature is 0 C or higher ... if the camera operation was really limited to 0 C (32 F) it would be a clear sign to stay away from such a camera.</p>

<p>I don't have any experience with freezing a camera, but I did once cook a Pentax that I left in my car during the summer heat. Got sooo hot I couldn't hold it in my hand, as you might have guessed it was DOA, still got a $100 bucks for the lens when I traded it for another 35 SLR.<br>

I live in the cold Finger Lakes of New York and frequently take my 40D out in the freezing weather and thus far haven"t had any problems.</p>