Cold camera & memory card

[stan_schurman1]

<p>I was out in very cold weather this evening for about 2.5 hours taking shots of an Olympic flame event. Toward the end of shooting my LCD screen went pale green with an irregular line horizontally through the middle. I shut the camera off then tried again and got a message saying that it couldn't configure the memory card. Would shooting in very cold weather possibly have this effect? When I got the camera home to download the photos, everything was working just fine.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Sure, that's possible. Lithium ion batteries can also deliver poorly when they're cold, and your camera may have been seeing insufficient voltage or current to behave itself. If I'm shooting out in the cold, I always keep a spare batter in an internal coat pocket so that body heat will keep it working better - and then I swap them around regularly.<br /><br />Don't forget that when you bring a cold camera indoors, you're going to condense indoor humidity onto the camera's surfaces, including the lens, viewfinder, sensor surface - all of it that's cold enough to do so. Try to stash the camera in a close-fitting ziploc (or similar) bag and let it come up to room temperature without allowing lots of room air to move past it and deposit moisture on things you'd rather keep dry.</p>

[Two23]

<p>What are you calling "cold weather?" For me it starts at 10F below zero. My D300 and D80 haven't shown any problems even at 32F below zero. Were you in temps colder than that, maybe? Weak batteries can cause all sorts of weird problems.</p>

<p>Kent in SD</p>

[stan_schurman1]

<p>It was about -15C which is roughly +5F. That's cold, but not the extreme that would likely casue problems I wouldn't think. The battery was charged before I left to go out and showed full charge throughout the evening. The camera worked fine when I arrived home and is fine now.</p>

[daverhaas]

<p>It could have been a combination of cold and humidity that did it. I've had no problems shooting for 20-30 minutes in 5 degree F with no / low humidity - but I've also had problems in 25 Degree F with 80% humidity shooting for 5 - 6 hours.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

[stan_schurman1]

<p>I was out before dawn this morning (still cold) to get some shots of the Olympic flame leaving town. Everything worked just fine. Just a momentary aberration I guess.</p>

[alex_iwonttell]

<p>Am I the only one who thinks this is not normal? Electronics should not have problems with cold, quite the opposite actually - that's why computer processors get cooled with liquid nitrogen for maximum performance. Perhaps lack of power from the battery could cause the camera to act up. You don't state which camera you have, but if the LCD and writing to card are the most power-demanding features of your camera (which I believe just might be the case with D300 and other models with 920k LCD and a fast card-writing chipset), then cold battery can cause this. Not electronics itself... Batteries need to be kept warm and swapped often.</p>

[robert_moraine]

<p>LCDs don't like the cold and it is possible to damage the displays, when it gets REALLY cold. -15C shouldn't have done anything, I've had my D50 out in -10C and lower weather shooting equestrian events but I kept the camera close to my body and when I could I went into a warm area.<br>

Writing to the card could be anything from the cold contracting the plastic of the SD card preventing the contacts from mating well, to the SD card just doesn't like the cold. With out having the unit in question it is hard to diagnose any problems.<br>

It is a popular misconception about modern electronics that they like to be really cooled. They generally like the temperatures and humidity that we like. I've seen computers come to a grinding halt when cooled below their normal operating temperature.</p>