batteries and cold (0C)

[leeonmaui]

Aloha,

Being mostly a warm weather shooter, I've not much experience managing batteries in cold weather any helpful ideas or insight would be appreciated.

I'll be working from a base camp, there is no power at the base camp.
I'll be shooting for ten days with Pentax 645D charged battery is rated at 400-600 frames
I plan on bringing six fully charged batteries.
I plan on keeping these batteries warm inside my gear clothes/sleeping bag, and rotating them out as the working battery gets cold.
Most likely I'll hike out, hopefully only once to stay in town and recharge my batteries, and my batteries!

the expected mean temp is 0C

Again Any thoughts on cold weather/ batteries etc would be appreciated.

Lee

[FredBGG]

Look into a solar powered option for recharging your batteries.
Cold weather will chew up your batteries very quickly.
Also look into an external battery pack where you can keep
the pack under your coat and plug it into the camera as needed.

[hasselbladfan]

Lee,
Zero degrees celsius is not cold.
Your batteries will do fine. Most issues start at - 10 Celsius.

[SnorriGunnarsson]

Agree with hasselbladfan - you should not have any problems with 6 batteries at 0c - but I would stick to the plan that you have keeping the batteries as warm as you can and you should be fine.

[opgr]

Someone once told me to store unused batteries cold as it reduces the chemistry processes, therefore reduces depletion. They only need to be warm prior to use. Personally, I've never been in a situation where that would be relevant for me, but the logic seemed sound at the time.

[leeonmaui]

Aloha,

Thanks for the responses, I'm from Hawaii 0C is way cold!
Did a bit more reading and found out Lithium batteries are pretty good in the cold...
68 degrees F here today, and we are freezing! cheers

[siebel]

To give it some real-world perspective, this winter I noted that my fully-charged, reasonably new Phase One batteries, which usually last about 4 hours of my typical use, were dead in 1 hour of similar use, even though  I keep my batteries in my coats inside pocket. Temps were cold, but not terribly so - in the -5 to 0degC range.