The Heat Is On.

[Dale.]

There's a song for your head today.


Out late afternoon and early evening yesterday, a 4 hour stint in some undergrowth. I did notice that my lens in particular was getting very hot with the sun shining on it. The body didn't seem so bad although the lens was almost too hot to touch in places. It concerned me enough to turn the camera away from the perch it was aimed at and into the shadow of the undergrowth, which could've cost me the shot. It turns out it didn't but how hot my lens was getting was a concern.

Next time, I'll be taking my camo cover, which is quite a light colour in comparison to the matt black of the lens, which should provide shadow and reflect the light to an extent too.

I'm guessing (hoping) there's no damage done, it all still worked perfectly when I needed it to but is it a worry worth actually worrying about?

 

[gramps]

From a DPReview post:-

Having been a camera repair tech for the majors, heat will cause the grease in the lens focusing assembly to leech out onto the diaphragm blades. What happens next is you get unexplained overexposure's as the camera fires, and then the diaphragm blades slowly (hydraulically) close down - or try to - and by then the shutter has closed and the event is all over, except the blades are sill moving.

It's a big gummy mess that usually requires a complete tear down and ultrasonic cleaning and dry lubing the blades with moly dust. It's actually worse than vibration damage, moisture, or cold, imho. Canon used to be a bad one for doing that which is probably the reason they moved to the white color of their $$ lenses to off the heat damage they experienced.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2925488

(Plenty of togs with equipment exposed at the woman's football this afternoon 30 degrees+)

 

[Dale.]

Interesting Roger, particularly the repair guy's comments.

 

[Dangermouse]

Interesting indeed, especially with heat like today, but wont manufacturers have seen this in the past and actioned some kind of fool proof way of using a lens in higher temps.

 

[johnf3f]

Why are the big Canon lenses white?

 

[swanseamale47]

You could wrap a bit of kipmat around the lens, that "should" help keep the heat off in theory. And you can get them in dark green.

 

[Dale.]

Why are the big Canon lenses white?

and annoyingly so for wildlife togs.

You could wrap a bit of kipmat around the lens, that "should" help keep the heat off in theory. And you can get them in dark green.

I'll look into that. Probably next year now as we've had our 2 days of summer, back to thick , heavy clouds now.

 

[Canon Bob]

I shot a wedding yesterday in 40 degrees and, during the cermonies, the gear was inside a car showing 54 degrees but all worked normally (except me). I think modern stuff is reasonably tolerant of extremes and it's rapid changes in temperature that are more likely to cause issues.

 

[johnf3f]

and annoyingly so for wildlife togs.

I agree! However I haven't found much wildlife that it annoys! Though I do generally use covers on mine - mainly for protection. It is a bit like the noisy shutter of the 1DX (etc) that freaks out humans but animals don't give a flying fig!

 

[swanseamale47]

and annoyingly so for wildlife togs.




I'll look into that. Probably next year now as we've had our 2 days of summer, back to thick , heavy clouds now.

Sadly your probably right. Just finished shots of a bride in a wildflower field, my second had two coats on she was so cold....