Trekking through snow

I’m being slowly sucked into the 2010 Winter Olympics, currently being held in Vancouver, mainly thanks to the quite good BBC  television coverage.    Sucked in, that is, in a way which is not good for my sleep patterns due to the fact that it’s primarily on late at night, though so far I’ve managed to avoid staying up until 4am watching it.  With the curling underway (I’m quite a fan) there’d be a risk of that over the weekend were I not going to be switched off from BBC until Sunday.  It’s probably best that way.  All that snow and slipping and sliding got me thinking back to my last skiing trip, in the lovely resort of Meribel, which features above.

I’m unlikely to get skiing this year – the first time I won’t have been since our first trip at the start of 2006.  Hopefully, if I get to go again next winter, missing a year won’t have a significant impact on my skiing abilities.  And anyway it’s not like I haven’t seen my fair share of snow this year.  In fact, there’s more of it forecast for this weekend and just this morning I woke to a light dusting of snow outside.

Even at its heaviest last month it didn’t compare to the levels of snow you experience in a ski resort, and so photographing it, or even just photographing out in it, didn’t have the issues that you can come across when taking photographs at a ski resort.

Yes, even if there’s only a light covering of snow, you have to deal with some of the technical issues that it throws up in terms of white balance and the impact of all that white on your camera’s metering, as I’ve discussed before. But there are more physical issues too.

The difference between what we’ve seen here and what you’re likely to get at a ski resort is both the volume of snow falling, and the temperature differences between inside and outside.  Both will impact on your camera if you’re not careful.

In terms of falling snow, it’s easy to forget that when it falls on your camera it will melt and potentially be damaging unless you have a weather-sealed camera (mostly confined to professional models) or take care to keep it from getting too wet.  Snow is easier to deal with than heavy rain in this respect – at least you can shake or wipe a lot of it off the camera before it melts – but it’s still worth protecting the camera from it as much as possible.

The issue of temperature difference between inside and outside, where outside is well below zero as high altitude ski resorts often are, and inside is heated to a nice cosy 20 degrees, is that as you take your camera from one environment to the other, you need to take care with how you treat the camera.

Going from a warm environment to a cold one is likely to see at least your lens fog up, so it’s worth having a lens cloth with you.  Also, for an SLR try to have changed your lenses before you go outside so as to not to risk the mirror or the sensor getting too exposed to that cold air either, or you’ll have moisture inside your camera as it warms up too.  One tip, though I haven’t used it, is to place the camera in a plastic bag before you go out and leave it to acclimatize.  Also, in cold weather don’t expect your camera’s battery to last as long as normal – having a spare ready is a good idea.

Going back inside with a camera that has been out in the cold you’ll need to leave it gradually acclimatize, and watch that any condensation is left clear before using it.  Putting it into your camera bag is a good idea to minimize condensation, and having a silica gel in your camera bag will help in extremem cases.  Most importantly you want to ensure all moisture has evaporated before bringing the camera back into freezing temperatures outside.

This post is probably a month too late, though skiing season is still well underway (for those lucky to be going this year), and I suspect we have a few more cold spells yet to come before spring is really here.