Cold Weather Shooting

 I went up to a cold place on purpose. I wanted to learn some practical skills for photography in the cold to prepare for Iceland trip in February. 

I drove an hour up to Echo Lake at the base of Mt Evans or Mt Blue Sky (if they change the name). The temperature was around 17F, but the wind was fairly calm at I approached the lake and set up my gear. I was warm from the car and felt pretty good for the first 30 minutes. If there was a slight wind I could feel it on my face and fingers, but otherwise I was comfortable.

I wore:

  •     Vasque Boots and heavy socks (perhaps not warm enough socks)
  •     Fleece-lined cycling tights (made a huge difference)
  •     Blue Jeans
  •     2 Long sleeve shirts (nylon and cotton)
  •     My Equadorian Alpaca-wool sweater
  •     Down jacket inside my bigger jacket. Neck gaiter, cap
  •     Photog gloves

Issues: 

  • Touching a cold camera makes my fingertips super numb almost immediately. 
  • The bottom of my feet felt cold long after the trip.
  • Face exposure to wind can be stinging.

Dealt with:

  • Used my numb pointer finger as a pointer that I used my other hand with!
  • Used my headlamp to see what I was selecting
  • Tried to minimize touching my camera by planning each touch with purpose (no mistakes)
  • Ran and paced around while the camera was shooting intervals kepy my body heat up
  • Experimented with the X hand muffy and with keeping hands inside pockets w finger tips covered
  • Rubbed finger tips together inside pockets
  • Use hand warmers
  • Figure out the feet situation
  • Drink hot beverages

I found it amusing that my finger tip became so numb I couldn't tell when I was pressing buttons. Navigating menus was difficult. So I used the headlamp to see and used my index finger as a stiff pointer held by my other hand. Isn't that funny?

I learned a lot about dealing with a cold shoot. My camera battery did great! I was still at 65% after two hours of shooting. My clothing worked well. At first I was quite warm, but it did eventually cool off for me. The fingertip numbness is something to deal with - I think hand warmers THAT WORK will help. The ones I tried didn't even come on - they had expired 3 years ago.

I am still figuring out how to use the Lumecube. It is so bright even at 1% brightness. I enjoy creating shots with it - even if the results are bizarre sometimes. Eventually I think I will learn how to use it in the right setting.

The MW was quite visible to me even though the galactic core was below the horizon. The photographs were harder to work with for MW and I am not super happy with that lake and trees as a foreground. But, shooting the star trails towards the North Star was really pretty good. 

This project had some great learning happening while I was out in the cold. I was mostly trying to get experience in the cold. I learned a lot about cold weather photography and came away with some good astro photographs too!

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