UKC

I’m off to Greenland soon and am at a bit of a loss as to what to do about a camera. I have a digi at the moment but this has proved unreliable in Scottish winter and in the Alps. Should I go for a more manual camera or is this just my digi playing up? Anyone any experience they could share?

In reply to CP: My old man spent several weeks out in greenland last summer, on the edge of the ice cap. He got plenty of great pics on digital and film. However, I don't think the temperature got much below -10C. I imagine it is somewhat colder at this time of year.
I have had problems with my didital camera in the cold, but these were solved by buying a dedicated Lithium-ion rechargeable battery for it - I've tested this at around -20C with no problems at all.
I think if it is likely to be very cold, a film camera would probably be better (so long as there is not too much moisture around to freeze in the larger number (compared to digital) of moving parts - this shouldn't be a problem in very cold weather however), simply because a film camera is less abusive to it's batteries.

In reply to CP: I have lived and worked in Greenland some years back. I always used my old MF SLR Camera combined with a newer AF model (i used the F/N 80 from Nikon as well as and older F3 with MF)

when it comes to lenses I used an old 24-120 mm. a fixed 50mm. (f1.8) and a 300mm. everythin was contained in a Lowepro Stealth (now called reporter) and a photo trekker backpack.

I have used small compacts as well especially the Mju II from olympus with a fixed objectiv. thats a great cam!!

I really haven't been using digi-cams for real upthere.. unless the few times I have used the D1 for press photos... but It doesn't really count as I used it outside for about an hour whereafter I took it indoors again to recharge the batteries.

LINDHOLM

In reply to CP: Four of us were out in Greenland for 5 weeks last summer - in the mountains on the edge of the ice cap. Jeff got consistently the best results with his digi camera - an olympus that runs on two AA size - he took a mini solar charger & several rechargeable batteries. I was running a Leica zoom compact, despite the special snow setting it consistently overexposed photos. The other two lads were on SLRs and had some very good shots & some not so good.

Main advantage of the digi was of course you can take loads of pics, junk all the bad ones and play with the settings.

Hope this helps.

In reply to chris j in aberdeen: Oh yeah, conditions were mainly dry, down to probably -10 maybe -15 at night when we did most of our climbing, just above 0 during daytime.

In reply to CP:

I spent three weeks climbing in NE Greenland last summer. Used a Minolta SLR for basecamp shots and an ancient Olympus XA2 for climbing shots. The advantage of the latter is that it is small enough to hang round my neck on a piece of cord and thus keep warm. Also in this respect, a good investment was an Ortlieb waterproof camera bag for the SLR which probably kept it warm as well as dry. Film used was Fuji 100 asa slide film which seems to give the best results for mountaineering.

In reply to Stephen Reid:

IMHO Ricoh GRV1 is worth the extra dosh over the Olymbus, better lens (leica 28mm f2.8) and exposure compensation very useful for snow