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I've got a Nikonos V camera (film) that you are welcome to borrow. It's completely immune to weather and is very rugged. But, nowadays film and processing are pretty expensive, and you don't get the instant gratification of digital.
 
Thanks Jonathon! Unfortunately I don't think I will be able to afford to develop all the rolls of film I would burn through :D
Come to think of it, I still have 35mm SLR from high school ... somewhere collecting dust, haha!
 
GreshamH said:
Can you let us know how it behaves it the cold? I'm super curious (even though I no longer own a DSLR..for now)?
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I was just on some camera forums the other night, and raised the same question regarding the colder temperatures and camera usability. A couple members have chimed in and said battery life will dramatically decrease, and the memory card will not be able to write at normal speeds. They did make mention of using the 40D and 50D in temperatures way below 32C, and said the camera worked fine.
I'll find out for myself in a couple weeks :D
 
I've shot in weather around 6 degrees fahrenheit without a problem at all. A lot of other things were not working that great other than the camera (my joints, hands were totally freezing, etc). In fact the camera did a much better job holding together than me. It was snowing hard and it was covered in snow. I wasn't shooting a basketball game or anything, but there wasn't a moment where I felt the camera "failing" or becoming sluggish. If anything my hands were less able to maneuver or push buttons, once the camera took over it was fine. Don't worry too much about the cold, these machines are amazing.

If anything just have a few extra batteries on you and you could put them in your pocket to warm them up (though I never found them to need that). In the cold weather you might not need incredible FPS.

Goodluck!
 
Thanks Art, I was hoping you'd chime in :) After getting opinions on camera performance in the cold, it seems almost no one has had any problems with their cameras. I do have an extra battery that I will keep in my backpack :) Who knows, I may actually get some cool action shots of my friends ... if I am willing to take my gloves off :D
Do you have any recommendations as far as camera settings go? I will probably be shooting in RAW, so I can always fiddle with the white balance during post processing. As far as aperture goes (I almost always shoot in Av mode), I assume shoot wide enough to get a nice fast shutter speed to freeze action? Anything else? Should I use exposure compensation, and under expose my shots a bit because of all the white snow?
 
A_Lee said:
Do you have any recommendations as far as camera settings go? I will probably be shooting in RAW, so I can always fiddle with the white balance during post processing. As far as aperture goes (I almost always shoot in Av mode), I assume shoot wide enough to get a nice fast shutter speed to freeze action? Anything else? Should I use exposure compensation, and under expose my shots a bit because of all the white snow?
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Just shoot as you usually do, nothing really should change. Use your aperture to control depth of field only as in the bright snow/sky combinations you won't have any problems with shutter speed. It's so freaking bright that your shutter will be fast even at f/16. If you're shooting landscape or if the surrounding area needs to be in focus and is important, use f/8 (in the brightness of the snow/sky you should have plenty fast shutter). Otherwise shoot closer to f/4 (depending on lens). Shooting your buddies flying by quickly real close to you, go with a faster shutter speed. I'd say under f/4 would be good.

Don't worry about exposure compensation, that's just guessing you might under or overexpose by accident. if you use spot or center weighted metering you should be perfectly fine. Shooting RAW there's a lot of leeway as well, so don't worry about that.

Goodluck! can't wait to see the results.
 
Well, I don't want to leave everything to RAW because I don't do a whole lot of post processing as it is ... I don't use PS CS4 or anything, just Adobe LR2 for basic tweaking here and there (And I don't even know how to use LR2 to its capacity either!). So normally if the picture is totally jacked, it doesn't necessarily mean I can save it :D
Thanks Art!
 
A_Lee said:
Well, I don't want to leave everything to RAW because I don't do a whole lot of post processing as it is ... I don't use PS CS4 or anything, just Adobe LR2 for basic tweaking here and there (And I don't even know how to use LR2 to its capacity either!). So normally if the picture is totally jacked, it doesn't necessarily mean I can save it :D
Thanks Art!
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I use LR2 sometimes too just to edit, I barely use any of photoshop, just camera raw. it's as simple as four sliders at most. Pictures that are totally jacked are going to be bad regardless of RAW or not. You have a nice DSLR, you should get the full power of RAW capabilities, don't use that as an excuse. LR2 can do everything I would do with RAW shots.

I also don't mean RAW is the save every picture thing. It just allows you to not have to spend tons of time right before taking a picture to make sure everything is completely perfect. A shot not taken because you are setup is nothing compared to a shot you took because you didn't have to fiddle around so much. Composition means everything. If your exposure or something else is off, nobody will care if what you took a picture of is *that* interesting.

No matter how perfect your exposure and colors are, if your photo has no composition, and heck if you missed it because you were adjusting your camera, that means nothing.

I don't know if there's a perfect setting or way to setup the camera that can encompass every situation out on the slopes. Exposure compensation will need to be bumped up if it's actually a good exposure anyway. Using RAW you'd basically have that leeway without needing to guess one way or another on the compesation scale. So what I'm saying is, by shooting raw, +1 or -1 ev steps on exposure composition is nothing, it can do that easily on it's own. LR2 has a slider just for that. So don't even worry about it. You might lose a picture that's way underexposed if you assume that you need to expose less. Exposure compensation is usually for lenses that tend to shoot darker or brighter, or extremely weird exposure effects that you want. If you just want something that looks good, and your lenses aren't jacked, just leave it at 0.

There's no shame in post processing. Post processing is as much of an art as taking the actual photo. Think about Ansel Adams, his true art was his post processing technique. Well that accompanied by his patience of going out there to get the right shots, but they would've been sucky if his post processing was non-existent.

You have to be able to think ahead of yourself. When you take the shot, it won't look exactly like you want, but you know how to get a picture that you can post process to exactly what you want.

When I see a scene, I can usually picture what it will look like after I run it through a few sliders in photoshop. So what I do is I spray until I get the right composition and then deal with it later on the computer.

Anyway, goodluck with the shots. When do you go?
 
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