Heat and cameras - does it cuase problems?

vangogh

Not sure if this is the right forum, but just wanted to get people's opinion on something. I went to India last summer in June/July at the heat of the monsoon - 47 degrees & very high humidity (very stupid, I've learnt my lesson!). I took my film SLR (Pentax MZ7) & used 100 ASA 35mm film, Kodak or Fuji I think, but can't remember. I also had a polarising filter on the camera & a standard 28-80 zoom lens.

I took nine rolls of film & had 2 developed here & the rest I took a gamble & had them developed in India as I was worried that they might be damaged by the Xray machines at the airport and I had been asked to get some shots for a friend's mag.

A lot of the pics weren't up to my usual standard, some were just plain rubbish. Shots that should have been good/reasonable just were dustbin fodder. Some shots taken at the same time, under the same conditions varied, some being sharp & reasonably well exosed given the very harsh bright conditions & others were totally blown.

At first I thought some of the problem was the processing, but I took the negs to a local camera shop & they said that the negs were fine, but maybe the dev for the prints had been a bit old.

Given that I took the same camera to Egpyt where the heat was almost as high, but the humidity slightly lower except in Aswan, and I got some great shots with wonderful blue skies, clear focusing etc, I'm confused as to why there should be such a disparity in the results.

I'm just wondering if very high humidity can have an effect such as mentioned here, was it the fact that I found the heat almost too much and couldn't concentrate properly or some other factor.

The shots that came out the best were the ones that were taken AFTER the camera got dropped when I slipped in the mud: clear, sharp as a pin & the colour is great. The filter bust so I wasn't using it then. (Spent £160 having the camera repaired when i got back!! Ouch!)

Would appreciate any ideas, as even now I'm really disappointed with pics that should have recorded a once in a life time trip. :dunno:scratch

Thanks

Antonio Correia

I am sory to read to this.
I understand when you say "...pics that should have recorded a once in a life time trip".
Indeed it is a rather great responsability to take pictures from a place where we probably never will be back...
But after all, photography is this and so is life. : Never repeating moments.
For a bad taste joke I would say you have to slip in the mud to have good pictures ... No, No. Just a stupid joke. :
When I was in India with 47C or 50C at the shadow (!) with harsh (* 2) light I was making movies.
But I can tell you about humidity a short story.
I had at the time a Sony film camera. A small but powerfull and my wife had - still does - a little Sony 3,6 Mpixell or so.
We were in Maldives Islands when a strom came.
We when out of the room and start shooting.
The camera (film) just stopped. Too much humidity. It recovered the next day and everything was fine.
The photographic camera never recovered. Now - some 3 years ago - after beeing used for 2 hours the humidity comes to the lens from inside part which spoils all the pictures...
I wonder if the same thing can happen now on the 20 D ...
Regards.

Seefutlung

I've only been shooting digital for about two years ... haven't been to any extreme climates (I live in SoCal).

But, (the big but), I used to be a photo journalist and covered stories from the equator to the artic circle, stories in tropical monsoons to desert sandstorms. And I cannot recall ever returning from an assignment photoless due to equipment failure.

This was decades ago, all with film and I never had a problem of consistantly bad photos due to climate. My Nikons had all the liquid lubricants removed (grease) and replaced with dry lubricants (graphite) for the Artic. My first assignments to the tropics I had agumented my equipment with a Calyspo (an underwater camera predessor to the Nikonos). I never had to used it.

Maybe it is due to my cameras being fully mechanical ... or back then Nikon built cameras like tanks ... but whatever the reason my cameras never failed me on an assignment. On a rare occassion I'd have some problem, but never in all my cameras and nothing that I couldn't shoot around ... always came back with a photo. (I don't count an odd piece of shrapnel or the stray bullet as camera failure.)

Antonio Correia

Seefutlung wrote:

... or back then Nikon built cameras like tanks ...

http://antoniocorreia.smugmug.com/gallery/1314289/1/43291157
Before this a had a Nikon F and everybody called me the Nikon F guy.
I agree that the cameras were built to last, like tanks ...
And they did...

SeattleYates

I do most of my photography underwater, which means I'm shooting in tropical areas where heat and humidity are high. The one thing that I've discovered is a killer (don't know if it applies in your case) is taking equipment from an air-conditioned room into that hotter, more humid outside environment. Moisture immediately starts condensing on EVERY part of the equipment (external and internal), and that is obviously a big problem. In fact, it is best not even to attempt to turn a camera on in that case for an hour or more, i.e., until it has adjusted to the ambient temperature and the condensation has evaporated.

Again, I don't know if you were ever shooting shortly after going outdoors from an air-conditioned room (or vehicle), but if so, that is one possible explanation...

Antonio Correia

SeattleYates wrote:

I do most of my photography underwater, which means I'm shooting in tropical areas where heat and humidity are high. The one thing that I've discovered is a killer (don't know if it applies in your case) is taking equipment from an air-conditioned room into that hotter, more humid outside environment. Moisture immediately starts condensing on EVERY part of the equipment (external and internal), and that is obviously a big problem. In fact, it is best not even to attempt to turn a camera on in that case for an hour or more, i.e., until it has adjusted to the ambient temperature and the condensation has evaporated.

Again, I don't know if you were ever shooting shortly after going outdoors from an air-conditioned room (or vehicle), but if so, that is one possible explanation...

Yes. You are absolutelly right.
One hour wait from extremes should be enought.
Inside the bag ! !
That's the problem I encountered in Maldives... I was so naive ...

vangogh

SeattleYates wrote:

I do most of my photography underwater, which means I'm shooting in tropical areas where heat and humidity are high. The one thing that I've discovered is a killer (don't know if it applies in your case) is taking equipment from an air-conditioned room into that hotter, more humid outside environment. Moisture immediately starts condensing on EVERY part of the equipment (external and internal), and that is obviously a big problem. In fact, it is best not even to attempt to turn a camera on in that case for an hour or more, i.e., until it has adjusted to the ambient temperature and the condensation has evaporated.

Again, I don't know if you were ever shooting shortly after going outdoors from an air-conditioned room (or vehicle), but if so, that is one possible explanation...

Ah! This might be part of the problem. We travelled in an air con coach & then went outside into the heat & humidity. I never saw any steaming up on the lens though. Apart from waiting an hour, which wouldn't have been possible in this case, is there another way round it?

Antonio Correia

Yes. Good point.
May be thermostatic bag ??
The one we use to bring our frozen food from the shop ?

wxwax

Seefutlung wrote:

I've only been shooting digital for about two years ... haven't been to any extreme climates (I live in SoCal).

Love your galleries!

vangogh

wxwax wrote:

Love your galleries!

Thank you!

And thanks everyone for your help & suggestions, much appreciated! I was a bit concerned that I'd lost my touch for a while!!

ziggy53

vangogh wrote:

... The shots that came out the best were the ones that were taken AFTER the camera got dropped when I slipped in the mud: clear, sharp as a pin & the colour is great. The filter bust so I wasn't using it then. (Spent £160 having the camera repaired when i got back!! Ouch!)

...

I am wondering if the filter might have been a problem all along.

ziggy53

vangogh

ziggy53 wrote:

I am wondering if the filter might have been a problem all along.

ziggy53

I've got no idea. I think I used the same one in Egypt, but can't remember. What I plan to do when I've got time, is have some of the better pics digitized & see what I can salvage. I had a look through them the other day a bit more dispassionately and there are more reasonable ones that I thought. Thye just look a bit washed out because of the bad printing.

How would people deal with very harsh light conditions usually? Say for instance you are under cover & the area is average to dark light with shadows, but the very harsh sunlight is at one side & is so bright that its washing everything out. Would you use flash or would that just wash everything else out?

I'll have to post some "bad" ones as well so people can see what I mean.

It could just be a mixture of factors. We travelled for long periods at a time in the air con coach (7 hours sometimes) so it definitely would have affected the camera.

pathfinder

I second the idea that moving from cool, dry air to very warm, humnid air is a serious problem.

I frequently experience this shooting butterflies in butterfly enclosures in zoos, etc, where the ambient temp in the buttterfy enclosures are 90 degrees Fahrenheit and very high humidity. All glass surfaces will be covered with moisture if you are not very careful - including inside the lenses with standard consumer grade lenses. This can take several minutes to hours to clear.

Film can be affected even more, as the film can get damp and sticky.

I posted a brief story about this last fall when Gary(dragon300zx) Nick ( gluwater) and Nightingale and I were shooting in Mackinaw Michigan.

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=180661&postcount=2