How to prevent condensation on your camera equipment.

Same image.  A better image was taken when the condensation cleared.  See below.

You know what condensation is.  A cold object comes into contact with warm, moist air, and tiny water droplets start to form on it.  You see the result on your iced drinks all the time, and on your eye glasses when you come in from the cold.

Unfortunately, cameras and lenses suffer from the same fate.  I was reminded of this while cruising western Middle America.  I would bring my cool camera from my stateroom out on deck to photograph birds or dolphins or something of the sort, and my first images would be foggy.  In fact, the viewscreen could be so fogged up that either the camera's focusing system wouldn't work or I couldn't see what I was trying to photograph.

There is a solution, but not one of convenience.  

The easiest solution is to bring your equipment into the warm, moist environment before it is time to shoot.  You may think that keeping it in a backpack (I have a camera backpack) would be enough transistion, but even then it is a problem.  It has to be outside of your carrying equipment for 10-15 minutes, before the issues have corrected themselves.

Using silica gel is the best solution for quick and immediate action.  However, even this isn't handy.  The camera equipment has to be stored in an airtight container, say a Pelican case or a Dry bag used for kayaking.  Taking it out of that environment shouldn't produce condensation inside the equipment, but you will still get condensation outside.  You can use soft cleaning cloths to take care of that, but only temporarily until everything warms up to ambient temperatures.

Now, you could keep your equipment in the environment in which you shoot.  That would mean keeping it locked up, on deck, away from your air-conditioned room, where it could be accessed and start shooting immediately.  That will never happen.

In a perfect world, the solution would be to store your camera with silica gel in a dry bag and keep it in the environment in which you will shoot for at least half an hour beforehand.  The camera acclimates, the internal moisture won't be a problem, and you will be ready for action.

There are other products besides silica gel that you can use.  Keep your stuff stored in rice.  Not practical.  Use Calcium chloride tablets - messy.  Store your stuff in a vacuum bag - no thanks.

The great thing about silica gel is that it is inexpensive, dry, and can be reused.  The trick is that you have to dry it out after use.  You do this in a hot oven so the water evaporates from the crystals.  Not convenient.

The truth is that time will solve all issues.  And patience - never underestimate the value of patience.  Unfortunately, most of the wildlife I photograph doesn't understand that.

Take a look at the image below.  It was taken a little later on when the camera's systems were clear of the condensation.  What do you think?

Brown booby photographed shortly after the above image when the condensation had cleared.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com