This time I am going to share an small experience with you, and also how we solved it cheap and easy, no more cold freezing cameras and lenses.
A few nights ago we was out shooting The ride of the Valkyries, it was a blistering cold night -25c. My two sons who both was shooting Sony Alpha A65, quickly had their cameras freezing up to the point where they couldn’t take any pictures, my Sony Alpha A99V was more faithful and kept on shooting, yet still I ran into trouble. My Samyang 14mm F/2.8, did build up a thin layer of ice on its dome.
Everything looked pretty hopeless, Aurora dancing over the skies and no mean to capture the beautiful scene. Then I remembered that I had some Hand Warmers which I previously had bought with the intent to keep in a inner pocket to help keeping us warm. I used one at each camera and secured it to the lens by tying it to the lens with a microfiber cloth. To my surprise, one was enough to warm both camera and lens for 6 hours, keeping both functional.
From now on these small heaters is going to be a standard part of my aurora hunting equipment.
Cheers, Guldmann
The Golden Hour 