Cameras in the heat

How hot are you talking? I sat in 100 degree heat for 4 hours watching a Dolphins game in Miami, with my D3 and 28-70 to hand. The D3 got so hot that I couldn't touch the metal parts of it, especially the top of it. I think I'd stop working before my camera did if I was in any hotter weather!
 
Good question, I'm sure someone will have a proper answer, but my 400D seems fine out here where the sunlight is very bright together with summer temperatures in the mid 30s+.

Obviously the camera gets shaded as much as possible but this is not always practical when out shooting. :shrug:

Neil
 
Im thinking over in africa how careful should I be with protecting the body to the sun.
 
I think it depends on the camera. If you look at the specs for your camera you'll probable find it's ok up to 40 Celsius.
When I was in the Sahara and other peoples cameras were failing mine was ok but it was nearly 50 C.
 
Well I know the Canons work in high heat as a friend uses a pro Canon camera and was sent to do a job in the sahara - The camera worked fine but the camera sensor disagreed with the sand. I guess the key is to use it as you normally would, but when you arent using it put it in a bag out of direct sunlight.
 
The only thing to worry about is going from an airconditioned enviroment to the outside temperature... you will get condensation inside the camera/lens so you need to take precautions to avoid that like keeping it in a sealed plastic bag when transfering from one enviroment to the the other.
Once that has been sorted it will put up with more than you can..as stated earlier.
 
rgrebby said:
How do lenses and cameras fair in extreme sunlight?
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Wouldn't know? I live in Scotland 9-) and while were at it what's global warming? Scottish National Dress is now Wetsuit and Wellies (in Tartan print of course) LoL
 
Operating Environment 0 – 40 °C, 85% or less humidity for most of the consumer canon models, Operating Environment 0 – 45 °C, 85% or less humidity for the canon pro bodies (1D series) same figures for Nikon consumer and pro bodies.

Peter
 
I have been considering today, whether the heat of Florida (October time) has been responsible for a pretty poor response at high ISOs (>400) on my 400D. I was not able to recreate the problem today with ISOs, I can't see that the lens would have any bearing on this.
 
I have used mine several times in Africa, and never had any issues, in 2007 they spent 8 hours a day on the back seat of the car, when not shooting without any issues.
 
coldpenguin said:
I have been considering today, whether the heat of Florida (October time) has been responsible for a pretty poor response at high ISOs (>400) on my 400D. I was not able to recreate the problem today with ISOs, I can't see that the lens would have any bearing on this.
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Yes the lens will have a significant bearing on being able to get cleaner images at higher ISO's as well as the camera. What lens were you using? and what were the light conditions like? The higher ISO performance for the 400D isn't great. You will start to get noise at 400, which will increase at 800, by 1600, they probably aren't usable.

Also during the day or at night think about your whitebalance settings, for places like the states, africa, Oz etc the cloudy or sunny setting works better than the AWB and use tungsten for night cityscapes and thing about a tripod especially at night or in reducing light.

Peter
 
An example of where I think the noise is temperature dependant,
some of the shots I was thinking about in america were taken at 1600ISO V dim light, on a 28-135 Canon IS, maximum aperture, at around 50mm. A lot of noise, red/blue pixels. Camera had been on my chest, walking around all day, so kinda shaded by my head.
Yesterday, I tested with 1600ISO, in a room without windows, door semi closed, with the 70-300mm Canon IS, 70mm max aperture (4.0). In this shot, there is grain, darker pixels next to lighter pixels, but not what I would call noise, incorrect colours)

Have been looking for a good example where the noise at 400 is greater than it could/should be, but have so far not found one that I have kept
 
The sensor noise at a particular ISO is affected by operating temperature. That's why, for Astro use it's important to get dark frames that are taken at the matching temperature the light frames were shot at. (darks are the equiv of in camera noise reduction). That's also why, dedicated astro cams are cooled down to some 25 to 50 degrees C below ambient.
 
For what it's worth, my D40X faired tremendously well when I was out in Dubai - I though maybe I'd have to keep it hidden from the sun but no problems in heat at all - it was getting up around 38°C.
 
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