States of matter

[MattBurt]

Pretty cold this morning so the open water patches that have not frozen over produce steam.
Water in all its states (solid, liquid, gas).

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Lovely illustration of physics principles in action.

[John R]

The frigid winter is tempered by the light and steam. Fabulous!

JR

[Paulo Bizarro]

Well done.

[francois]

It looks so cold that even the glacial water of that river produces some steam!
It's a beautiful shot.

[MattBurt]

Lovely illustration of physics principles in action.

The frigid winter is tempered by the light and steam. Fabulous!

JR

Well done.

It looks so cold that even the glacial water of that river produces some steam!
It's a beautiful shot.

Thanks all!
Francois, it was that cold! -18 F which is not unusual here. If there is still open water when that level of cold arrives it always produces some nice steam. But it also makes everything freeze up and once the ice takes over and seals things up, the steam is done.

[Chris Kern]

. . . it was that cold! -18 F which is not unusual here.

I'm curious what equipment you were shooting with, and whether you needed to do anything to keep it operating properly in temperatures that low.

[MattBurt]

I'm curious what equipment you were shooting with, and whether you needed to do anything to keep it operating properly in temperatures that low.

This was with a Pentax 645D and the Pentax A 35mm f/3.5 lens (which is great).
I was out for about 30-40 minutes and had no issues. I had some warm batteries in my pocket as that is the most likely point of failure but didn't need them.
My K-1 also seems to do very well in the cold with the only issues being batteries getting too cold which is not too hard to mitigate.
This is below the stated operating temperatures for these bodies but they just keep going.

[Chris Kern]

My only experience shooting in temperatures as low as that was more than 50 years ago when I was attending college in northern New Hampshire.  I had a Honeywell (Asahi) Pentax H1a SLR, and mostly used it with the manufacturer's "kit" 55mm lens.  No issues with battery life in those days: the camera was entirely mechanical.  I do distinctly recall one winter morning when a classmate banged on the door of my dorm room at the crack of dawn and announced that we needed to shoot some pictures of the campus in new-fallen snow.  We were outside for a couple of hours and I don't think I felt particularly cold, but late in the session I pulled the camera away from my face and took a big chunk of skin from my forehead with it.  I decided there and then that cold-weather photography would never be my forte.

[MattBurt]

My only experience shooting in temperatures as low as that was more than 50 years ago when I was attending college in northern New Hampshire.  I had a Honeywell (Asahi) Pentax H1a SLR, and mostly used it with the manufacturer's "kit" 55mm lens.  No issues with battery life in those days: the camera was entirely mechanical.  I do distinctly recall one winter morning when a classmate banged on the door of my dorm room at the crack of dawn and announced that we needed to shoot some pictures of the campus in new-fallen snow.  We were outside for a couple of hours and I don't think I felt particularly cold, but late in the session I pulled the camera away from my face and took a big chunk of skin from my forehead with it.  I decided there and then that cold-weather photography would never be my forte.

I've had trouble with my face sticking but never quite that severe! The LCD screens can fade out too once the camera body gets really cold.
When I do mountaineering or ski photography I'll keep the camera in a big jacket pocket to share some body heat with it. That helps for extended outings but honestly below zero I usually keep things brief if I can.

[kers]

looks cold!
We had an unusual (record breaking) warm year change of 12º celcius (Amsterdam) . a bit colder now..