[Leica] Using Leica at -15F or -25C

[timatherton at theedge.ca (Tim Atherton)]

I've found that below about -30c down to - 42c  my M6 quickly turns into
nothing but a solid block of ice.

Once it has been out at -30 for around say 30 minutes, the focus becomes
progressively harder to use until the lubricant basically freezes solid (as
was pointed out early once it gets to this stage, set it to hyperfocal
distance). Much colder/longer and the rewind gets stiffer and the shutter
begins to freeze up. I've got to the point where I've clicked the shutter
and after a delay of a second or two I can here the shutter curtains slowly
sliding along. By that time it's toast until it completely thaws out. The
exposure LED's have usually died long before that.

I've always found it pointless keeping it under a parka in those
temperatures and just pulling it out to take pix. It collects all the
moisture from you body then freezes when it comes out - as it is removed and
replaced moisture and/or ice gradually builds up. (+ you gradually get
colder from losing heat).

Lugger John Poirier has a system of two parkas for those temps - a lighter
one under a huge heavy one - the camera lives in between the two - never
gets too warm or moist or too cold.  Though he usually forsakes his M4-2 for
a trusty old Pentax that just keeps on ticking. He also then looks like a
large grumpy bear rolling along... :-)

I would usually find my old OM1's kept going longer in the cold than the
Leica M's - about 1 hr at around -35c rather than 20-30 minutes for the M's.
Best of all is my old Nikon F4 with two sets of Lithium AA batteries. It has
never ever completely froze up (neither did the lenses) and kept going for
3+ hours easily on one set of batteries, the others kept warm in an inner
pocket and swapped over when one set eventually got cold. But it was
basically the most reliable of the lot  :-)


tim