As usual for this time of the year, I haven’t been too productive with my camera lately. Maybe if I spent my winters in warmer, more exotic climes I’d have more to offer. I have been working on an exhibit that will be up in March and April so I’ve been doing a lot of printing. I’ll say more about that in a future post.
On Super Bowl Sunday we finally had our first good snow storm of the season. It wasn’t one of those monster storms like the ones that have been hitting Boston (I guess I should be thankful for that), but it did bring about 8 inches of snow. The snow was accompanied by high winds so that made it more like a good old fashioned blizzard. It seemed like a good time to go for a walk and take a few winter photos.
When I go out in weather like this I always put a plastic bag over my camera. I just use one like you might get when you buy a few things at the grocery store. The goal is not to seal the camera in but just to cover the camera when it’s not in use and allow it to be quickly and easily pulled out when needed. I don’t worry about getting a little snow or rain on the camera, the Canon 7D is well sealed, but I do try to minimize the exposure to the elements and keep the lens reasonably dry. It was about 14 degrees F and the snow flakes were small and relatively dry so that helped. The wind was the challenge.
I walked down to the lake to see if any ice fishermen were out there. I could hardly see the lake until I was about half a block away. In the distance I could see a couple faint figures. It was a couple on snow shoes walking their three dogs. It was nice to see I wasn’t the only one crazy enough to be out walking in the storm. I could barely see the ice fishing shanties and I was too cold to walk out there so I don’t know if fishermen were there.
When I got back to the house I put the camera into a zip lock bag and sealed it before bringing it inside. That prevented the humidity in the house from condensing all over the camera. I let it sit for an hour or so to return to room temperature before I took the camera out to download the images. That gave me ample time to drink some hot chocolate and thaw out as well.