Precautions for camera and lenses in winter

I will be in Europe during winter and plan to do a lot of outdoor photography. I am concerned about the effect of environmental/temperat​ure changes on the camera and lenses . For example, taking the camera from cold temperature into the warmer temperature indoors may result in moisture condensation in the lens and camera body. Will this internal condensation lead to fungus growth later? So, I would like to get some inputs on precautions that could be taken. Thanks for the inputs!

I put my Camera a large, Cold bag before I go into a warm environment...........​....

what gear do you have ?
i shoot in winter ( i'm from europe - romania ) and never had any problem other than battery discharging way faster than normal.
i put the camera in car 30 minutes before shooting, and then back to warm home, no problems.

Simply place the camera and lens in a sealed (that's important) plastic bag when moving from one extreme temperature to another until the kit has stabilised. This prevents the moisture from forming.

Keep your camera bag/back pack or whatever completely closed as well. It would do no harm to wrap that in a plastic bag for the same reason.

As far as condensation goes, you won't get any going from warm indoors air to cold, dry outdoors air. It is taking the cold gear into warmer, moister indoor air that will give you condensation. No need to wait for the gear to cool off.

It gets down to -40 degrees where I live... I've shot at -20 to -30C and have never taken any special precautions. As pknight points out, indoor humidity can be a problem.. Taking the camera into a warm very humid environment will cause heavy condensation. I keep the winter humidity in my house around 40% so condensation isn't really a problem.

Actually the biggest headaches for me have occurred in the summer when I've taken the camera from my air conditioned house to the outdoors on a hot and very humid day and wound up with instant lens and viewfinder fogging..

pknight wrote in post #16372399
As far as condensation goes, you won't get any going from warm indoors air to cold, dry outdoors air. It is taking the cold gear into warmer, moister indoor air that will give you condensation. No need to wait for the gear to cool off.

NO! It simply forms in a different place. Its the humidity and the difference in temperatures, not whether its indoors or out that causes the problem, which can exist in either direction.

There are no issues going from warm to cold. Don't make any attempt to keep the camera warm when outdoors, just let it get cold and leave it cold until you are finished. I always have a second battery in a warm pocket next to my body, and swap them out whenever it is necessary. Before you bring the equipment indoors, put it all in a plastic bag of appropriate size (I often put the whole camera bag into a garbage bag) and let it warm slowly sealed up from the indoor humidity.

It is far more important to worry about YOU and your ability to photograph in cold. Hands are a big problem. Gloves that allow you to manipulate the camera controls won't be very warm. Cold cameras and tripods suck heat very rapidly. My solution is to wear thin gloves inside warm mittens. Take the mitts off to work; the thin gloves provide some protection; then put the mitts on again to keep warm.

Your camera will do just fine in the cold. YOU will need to stay warm if you want to enjoy photography in the cold.

Northern Alberta (routinely below -30C) my biggest problem is cold hands when shooting. I had my wife sew a string in my mitts and pulled them through my coat (just like when I was in kindergarden!!) LOL

Leon