Safe shooting in more humid environments ?
 

Recently I shot some bridal preparations with my Canon XH-A1S.

One of the rooms was a tiled bathroom area which felt warm and quite humid, from presumably some recent baths/showers in there.

The place wasn't dripping wet or steaming or anything (otherwise I would not have gone in), but it got me wondering about the safety of shooting in similar environments and avoiding any dreaded condensation problems or worse.

I was in and out of the room (between another warm but less humid place) so didn't spend a great deal of time in there with the camera once I got the shots.

How do you decide how humid is too humid for the camera in these situations? How robust is the Canon in resisting any degree of humidity?

Shouldn't really cause damage I wouldn't think, the main problem with humidity is the tape decks tend to turn themselves off as they don't like it. This is one of the great things about solid state, they don't have this problem.
I've taken Digibetas and others into rainforests and occassionally they just stop, a flashing warning comes up and they won't run - it's the tape mechanism either failing or purposefully not engaging to save damaging itself.
Steve

Pretty good in fact. I've been in some similar situations and it comes down to .. how important is the shot. You just get in shoot and get out. Double check all the settings before you go in.

More of a problem is instantly going from hot to cold when all cameras will mist up for a some minutes .. let them acclimatise first.

Cheers.

Humidity
 

The biggest issue I have seen is spending time in an air conditioned environment, then then moving to a high humidity one. The camera can see condensation as a result, although most VTR devices will not permit any tape movement when they sense head condensation. Checking the manual, I can see nothing regarding humidity, condensation, or other. As a safety precaution, I'd recommend not moving from AC to high humidity without giving the camera a period of temperature adjustment.

Paul, condensation is covered in the A1 manual on p145 .. the A1s it's on p142.

Canon says if the message 'CONDENSATION HAS BEEN DETECTED REMOVE THE CASSETTE' starts flashing .. remove the cassette immediately and leave the cassette compartment open.

Then they say .. 'It takes about 1hr until the water droplets evaporate. After the condensation warning stops flashing wait 1 MORE hour before resuming use.'

YIKES there goes the shoot and leaving the compartment open for 2hrs is just inviting airborne crap inside don't do that. There's stuff there about how to avoid condensation and it's better to follow that.

More of a problem is leaving the camera in a hot car for a couple of hours when Canon say 'not higher than 30C' .. I've done that a couple of times up to 40C. (104F) The cam was hot to touch so I removed the battery and left it for a couple of hrs. no problem. Shouldn't do it of course.

Despite what you might read Pelican cases are not temperature proof.
Cheers.