Sudden temperature changes, and condensation?

I'm new to photography. My goal is to photograph wildlife, instead of killing it.
After setting in my blind for 4 hours, with temps in the 30's. When I brought my camera into the cabin, the lens fogged up.
When I was hunting, I either left my scoped rifle in the truck or garage all hunting season, to prevent this.
How concerned should I be with condensation on my camera and lens. Both external and internal.
And what do you recommend, to avoid this condition.
Thanks.

Living in humid Sri Lanka I place my kit in zip lock bags as well as the insulation of the camera bag whilst still outside if I am coming in to an air conditioned environment and will need to shoot outside straight after.

Where not, the kit goes through a dry vs humid cycle. No damage to anything in very many years.

BitmanDave wrote in post #19300614
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After setting in my blind for 4 hours, with temps in the 30's. When I brought my camera into the cabin, the lens fogged up.
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You can bring your cold lens & camera into the warm cabin ... no need to leave it outside. . But you'll want to take some precaution to keep it from fogging up.

What I do when bringing my camera gear in from the cold is to wrap it in a jacket or sweater. . This keeps it from cooling down too quickly, and keeps it from getting condensation on it. . After two hours or thereabouts, after the camera & lens have warmed up very slowly, then I can take them out of the sweater, if there's some reason to do so. . Otherwise they just stay wrapped up in the sweater until I head out to shoot again.


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Hi,

It's all due to the relationship of temperature of the optics, ambient temperature and humidity. When humidity is high, the dew point will be near the ambient temperature. The dew will form on the surfaces of things that are cooler, than ambient temperature, with high humidity. So when the temperature drops, and humidity is high, you'll commonly see dew form on things like lenses, which are cooling faster than ambient through radiation.

The simple way to prevent dew is to have your objects warmer than ambient, and then it will not form dew. You can do this with chemical handwarmers touching the body of the lens or front of the lens assembly. You can do this with a portable warmer of any kind. Lots of people do this with optics, such as having a warming case or warming bag, where there are warming elements or bags in the bag/case and you just put your camera assembly, lens, etc, in there for a few minutes and let it heat up a bit. As long as your equipment is around 2 degrees warmer than ambient, it will not form dew.

Just remember, the moment you expose the lens to the cold again, it will acclimate over time and may eventually get cooler than ambient air again, and if humidity is high, that means it will begin to form dew. So you may have to re-warm now and then. The chemical bag hand warmers and rubber bands are a great friend to keep things a little warmer than ambient.

Very best,