Winter is Coming — PROMASTER BLOG

Every season provides new photographic opportunities and winter is no slouch. If you’re like me you’re probably wondering how fall has flown by so quickly. Nonetheless, it's time to prepare for winter and get ready for a new set of adventures.

Your Hands are Important!

Honestly, no one likes having cold hands. When your fingers freeze, it makes operating a camera far more difficult and far less enjoyable. If you’re shooting with a cage on your camera, then you know how cold the metal gets in the dead of winter. This is where the Knit Photo Gloves come into play.

Having warm gloves is great but you need to stay functional while out on a shoot. The Knit Photo Gloves maintain this by offering foldable index and thumb fingertips, allowing you to have a more tactile feel for your camera's buttons while keeping the rest of your hand warm. If you’d like to keep your fingertips covered, you can still operate your camera's LCD screen as the fingertip material is touch screen compatible meaning you do not have to compromise. A zipper pouch on top of the glove makes for a convenient place to store a lens cloth or an extra SD card. I’ll often take a hand warmer and tuck it inside the glove, resting it in my palm. This combined with the gloves makes for a great combination. Tighten your hand into a fist to warm up those fingertips!

Genuinely, these things are a must and I swear by them in the cold. They keep you in the game!

Batteries and the Cold

Like our hands, batteries don’t tend to love the cold. To help reduce the effects of cold temperatures on battery performance, we recommend doing your best to get and keep them warm when out on location.

Once again, hand warmers will be your friend here. By simply firing up a few handwarmers and tucking them in your pocket along with a few batteries, you can help keep them warm before they end up in your camera. They will also have the added benefit of being closer to your body as it radiates heat.
If you’re like me and you run around with tons of different batteries, you might not be able to fit all of them in your pocket. Keeping the ones you use the most or that die the fastest in your pocket will be beneficial.

The rest of your batteries can be tucked into a tech pouch or even something like our neoprene compact camera pouch or pouch case. Stow them inside one of these cases with some, you guessed it… hand warmers… and throw them in your bag. For larger batteries, like v-mounts, you can use a larger case or simply stow them in your camera bag dividers with hand warmers tucked adjacent.

The key here is to generate heat where it isn’t. Do your best to keep them warm and they should do their best to keep your gear running. In addition to keeping them warm, having the ability to charge your batteries while on location can be a lifesaver. You can combine our Powerhouse NP-F980 with our USB-C charging batteries for a powerful duo that can prevent unwanted blackouts. You can run power straight from the powerhouse to the USB-C rechargeable. The two can be kept in a jacket pocket while charging or thrown into your camera bag.

Another way to keep your batteries warm along with your entire camera system is to utilize a cold weather camera parka. Oftentimes, shooting in the harshest elements can result in some of the most rewarding images, but this can come at the expense of your gear. The cold weather parka has a PU coated outer shell for water resistance with cotton batting for insulation. In addition to that, it has a fleece-lined interior that makes for more comfortable use. This thing is kind of a triple threat. It protects your camera, keeps your batteries warm, and keeps your hands warm, making it a great option for those looking for an all-in-one solution.

Tripod Accessories

Leave your tripod out in the cold for a couple hours and go pick it up… freezing, I know. One simple way to reduce this effect is to add something like gaff tape to your tripod (or any grippy tape). Kind of like taping up a hockey or lacrosse stick this provides some extra grip but also provides added separation from the cold tripod leg. If this isn’t the look you’re after and you want something with a little added cushion, our leg warmers are a great option for those in the XC-M tripod ecosystem. They simply wrap around one of the tripod legs and can be easily zippered on and off as needed.

Sometimes traditional tripod feet won’t cut it either and you need a little extra bite. The All terrain feet are an easy upgrade to make your tripod more versatile. While they are listed for XC-M tripods, these will work with any of our tripods that feature a ⅜” 16th thread. These are perfect for giving you that extra little bite when working on surfaces like ice. They also include 3 soft tips making transitioning to more fragile surfaces a breeze.

Conclusion

Winter is an awesome time to get out and photograph locations in a totally new and profound way. Spots that you frequent may take on a totally different appearance. There are plenty of opportunities to explore new compositions before spring rolls around again. Despite the excitement, there are the challenges of the cold and with some simple prep these can be easily overcome. Do your best to keep yourself and your gear warm, stay safe, and get out there.