Have you guys any experience how the HV30 handles when it's cold outside.
Being in Sweden the temperature now is between -10 to -15 C. Is it safe to use the camera in that cold and what do I do when taking it inside again.

Happy New Year to all people in this forum.

Happy New Year Hans.

Expect your battery life to be noticeably shorter, but apart from that it should work OK if there no snow falling. Try to keep the camera warm if possible if not using it for prolonged periods.

When going back inside, if you can put the camera in an airtight plastic bag to let it heat up slowly to room temperature then you are less likely to have condensation problems. If you have a silica gel sachet to put in to the bag along with the camera that helps as well.

The Wallander series has taken off in the UK by the way so there are quite a few of us interested to see more of Sweden if you want to post a clip or two. (No violent crime neccessary :-)

Thanks for your advice, Colin.

BTW, I was not involved in the Wallander series, I was not even asked :-(

Hans,

I use all three of my canons in as cold as -25 degrees.

I keep them in my camera case, bring them back in the house and leave them alone in the cold case and let it warm up for an hour.

I have never once had a condensation message on a camera.

Battery life is short so get some batteries, as mentioned!!!

Thank you both,

Tomorrow I'll go out and try. The weather forecast says it will be -18 C so probably I need to warm up before the HV30.

Well, I took the camera out yesterday in -11 C.

After 20 minutes I had moisture between the Rainox 6600 and the camera, at least I think so.

Two hours later I tried again with the same result. One hour later I tried without the wide angle lens - now I had no problem with moisture. The temperature was the same.

Next time I'll wait to mount the wide angel lens until the camera and lens have been cold or...?.

Here is the edited video:
Januarimorgon - Bolinder Strand on Vimeo

Hi Hans,

I notice that you managed smooth zooms at your -11 C. I recently was shooting with my HV30 at about -10 C and found that the zoom was quite jerky. It would zoom a little, stop and then move some more and stop again. If I warmed the camera by putting it near my body, it smoothed out for a while before reverting. I don't know which of us is typical!

Cheers, Ian

Hi Ian,

Maybe the jerky zooming comes from the warm mittens you had :-)

I set my HV30 zoom to, as I remember it, speed "2" instead of manually operating the zoom-speed.

Regards

Hans

Hi Hans,

no, mine is set to the slowest zoom, not manual, and I took my mittens off to shoot. It quite consistently went jerky over the course of an hour, videoing on and off. Putting it under my jacket for a while always cured it.

Hopefully it is just mine.

Cheers, Ian