Camera Set Up

This is my camera set up for braving the coldest, longest winter on earth. Things that are important to notice:

1. Electronic hand warmer taped to the battery side of the camera. This gives me about 40 minutes to work with before the battery freezes, I usually get cold before that happens though.

2. Taped focus ring. This keeps the focus on infinity (good for stars/moon/far away stuff), it's annoying to have to deal with the focus ring with mittens on, in the dark and when you can't see through the view finder.

3. Teflon cord remote with epoxied nut  for easy activation with mittens on. I have to cut the normal cord for this remote and solder in a Teflon cord so that the cord would remain flexible in extreme clod. Normal camera remote cords would freeze solid and snap when bent after about -30 F. The remote is plugged into the side of the camera and I have also taped that port closed so no snow can infiltrate the area.

4. Non rubber strap. Rubber ones freeze solid and crack.

5. Hat attached to strap as a camera pouch for easy stowing and added warmth.

6. Piece of wood. I use this to adjust the angle of the lens from wherever I have place my camera (snow, railing, roof, cardboard box, etc.) It's a light and compact alternative to using a tripod. I don't like to carry a tripod everywhere I go, it's bulky and to heavy to carry around all the time while I'm working outside. Plus holding on to anything with your hands for extended periods of time compresses your gloves and makes your hands very cold pretty quickly. I avoid carrying things with my hands while outside as much as possible. Plus tripods have to be winterized because any grease in the tripod joints will freeze up and not allow for any movement so this grease has to be cleaned out and replaced with extreme cold temp grease.

7. The rubber thingy around the view finder is also removed. This rubber thingy would freeze and crack if used outside.

8. Most importantly learning where all the buttons are by feel and being able to change settings with in the dark with little to no visuals was very important. LCD screens stop working after a few minutes so pretty much everything is done blind. Many times what you are taking a picture of was too dark to see with the naked eye let alone through the view finder so framing shots was just a lot of guess work and laying around on the ice trying to line things up.

That's pretty much it. A big thanks to Robert Schwartz to teaching me about winterizing a camera, supplying a plethora of awesome advice on aurora photography and recommending to the buy the camera that I have. Here is his website and amazing time-lapse videos.