Hot & Humid Weather?
 

Anyone shooting in this weather? I

'm curious if the camera can take it being 96F out and humidity at 60%

That kind of weather is hard on ANY piece of equipment, including you.

It's just not the camera, but the tapes that can be roughed up, esp if in direct sun light.

I'd personally try to avoid it. Will it kill the camera? Doubtful (see Andrew Young's adventure in Madagascar). But it might very well take a few years off of it w/ prolonged exposure to this record setting heat.

Good luck -

john
evilgeniusentertainment.com

No matter what conditions you are shooting in, it is important to climatize the camera/lens and your tapes before you power up and start rolling. This is especially important in humind climates.

So for example, if you are shooting in an air-conditioned studio most of the day, and then you decide to run outside in 96F conditions to bang off an exterior shot, you should place the camera/lens/tape in the shade outside with the power off until it is climatized enough to shoot without creating any condensation on the heads.

At the end of this thread http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=weather

Shai Camerini says that his camera works fine in the weather in Israel. The temperature is similar to Chicago, but Israel doesn't have the low 60% humidity like Chicago.

But how?
 

Great point Tim, esp in this weather. Just a question though - how to actually climatize it? Right now for much of the country, it's 95 or hotter out. There's no real middle ground - you're either in air conditioning or you're frying. I guess I ask because I'm not so sure just bringing the camera out w/ the power off would do it at this point...

john
evilgeniusentertainment.com

Thanks. That's what I thought. Right now I have the AC blasted at 65 the whole day and it has yet to reach 75 because it's that hot.

I'm in Chicago, too, and I was filming all day yesterday with the XL2 outdoors. The people at Canon told me a good way to acclimate the XL2 (or any camera/gear for that matter) is to put the camera inside of a sealed plastic bag, and let it sit outside so that the camera can adjust to the temperature outdoors. This is especially important when taking the camera in and out of extreme enviorment differences (i.e. 75-95 degree difference). You'll obviously want to do this in indirect sunlight.

The importance of the plastic bag is to prevent any kind of condensation from forming inside or outside the camera while it adjusts to the heat.

Lastly...make sure you have your camera insured.

Speaking of condensation, does anyone have a good source for those silica disicant packets?

I shot a couple of videos in 95+ with no clouds in the sky. I don't know how many % the humidity was, but down south in Georgia (US) it gets pretty nasty. It took about 15 minutes and I started getting "low voltage" messages on the cam, with the AB batteries fully charged. I had brought two AB batteries, and I kept getting the same message. The handle was almost too hot to touch. I used the reflector to shade the camera for a few minutes, and made sure it was shaded the whole time, and after that I never had any more trouble. I was shooting 2 days straight, during peak heat hours.

I've also heard that the glue or silicon, or whatever that is keeping the lenses in place, might go soft and start "dropping" the lenses. Forget about focus assist:)

The plastic bag trick works sometimes. The idea is that the condesation forms on the inside of the bag instead of the camera parts.
I think this trick is even in the IATSE Camera Assistant's manual.

I doubt that going from 70°F air conditioning to 95°F outside will present terrible problems with fogging or condensation unless the humidity is really really high.

Climatization is really important in the winter months (especially where I usually shoot.) If we are outside shooting in freezing weather, the camera department will keep the lenses, mags, bodies, etc at the outside temperature until wrap. The lenses will fog as soon as they are brought inside to the heat, so a second set of lenses and bodies is usually recommended if you won't have time to climatize the gear during a unit move.

By the way, for those that think it snows all the time here in Canada, it was 95°F in Toronto today, but with the humidity "felt" like 115°F.

amen to that. I'm in the Philippines, and going from the air conditioned studio to the humid outside caused the camera to shut down basically.

btw, the error message the camera gives is ambiguous, something like "Turn off your camera and turn it on later" or something vague like that.

60% humidity is comfortable... try NY @ 90%+ and 90+ degs

you should not have a problem as long as you aren't taking the camera from 70deg AC outside. You'll get condensation. better to let the camera aclimate and stay in the environment its gonna shoot in if possible.

the rule of thumb, cold camera into warm environment is the problem. putting the camera in any case, plastic bag, ect that lets it adjust gradually will prevent condensation.

Steve Oakley

All this makes me worry. I will have my HD-100 with me in Iraq soon, where it regularly reaches over 120 degrees with low humidity.

One thought I just had while reading is that we need to remember that the humidity factor should not affect your camera the way we feel it. Condensation will happen more in humid areas, but since cameras do not have sweat glands, they would not "feel" the humidity like we do. To them it would always feel like 100% humidity, since they do not have our fancy built in cooling systems.

Is is possible my camera could be permenantly damaged by the heat out here? I will rig some sort of a shade for the camera, to keep the direct sunlight off it but I'm now afraid of the lenses getting messed up.