M8 Extreme Cold Weather

[johnalex141r]

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Hmmm - having lived in Canada for a while; there is some good ideas above, and some not so good ones (IMHO).

 

So, IMHO, the ideas of :

 

1) take manual film cameras;

2) seal cameras in plastic bags, and remove as much moisture as possible

 

are right on. moisture (even in "dry" air) will condense when the air is cooled, and it'll condense on any metal surface. So, before you even think of removing your cameras from the plastic bags, let em sit outside for a little while. If they do get stuck, you can either:

 

a) just leave them in the sun for a while, and hope the mechanism will unstick;

seal em up, bring them inside, warm them up, and repeat step 2) above.

 

I used to take a F1N (35mm) outside all the time. Sometimes I'd remove the battery, as these things hate cold, and guess meter. (sunny f-16, as mentioned by someone above) Of course, my Fujica rangefinders don't really need batteries... ;-)

 

If I was going to take an M8 out, I'd really think about turning off the lcd picture review, as not only will you probably not be able to see it for various reasons, it'll suck what little battery juce you have with you.

 

PS - Northern Minnesota gets mighty cold, it's not only us few canadians that have to deal with this stuff.

 

PPS - I had a Volkswagen that (long story) had a factory recall; purchased in Canada, then moved it to the Netherlands. the recall was for the power steering unit; they did NOT replace it, as only in Canada did it get cold enough to have problems and thus did not have replacement parts in Europe.

 

John Stewart

Ottawa, Canada.