Taking my 40D skiing.

Prophet

Prophet

Prophet

Soldato
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I'm off to Morzine on the 25th Jan. This will be my first skiing holiday while owning a DSLR so have a few questions:

1. Any special care I need to take due to the cold?

2. I've got a Tamron f/ 2.8 17-50, Nifty 50 and Canon L 70-200 f/4. Do you think I'll use the 70-200? I'm thinking of only taking what I need.

3. Shooting snow. What do I need to tweak to get the best shots. I'd like to get some landscapes and a few action shots or me and the lads plus the 'standing at the top of a mountain' shot.

Any info would be great :)
 
Orange Peel said:
I'm off to Morzine on the 25th Jan. This will be my first skiing holiday while owning a DSLR so have a few questions:

1. Any special care I need to take due to the cold?

2. I've got a Tamron f/ 2.8 17-50, Nifty 50 and Canon L 70-200 f/4. Do you think I'll use the 70-200? I'm thinking of only taking what I need.

3. Shooting snow. What do I need to tweak to get the best shots. I'd like to get some landscapes and a few action shots or me and the lads plus the 'standing at the top of a mountain' shot.

Any info would be great :)
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me personally - get a simple digital pocket size digital camera for £100 or something - save the hassle of lumping a DSLR around with you all day, losing it, breaking it, get it soaked etc etc
 
Wouldn't take my DSLR Skiing, avoided taking it last time its such a PITA, get a good quality compact instead, if you do take your DSLR i wouldn't take it out on the slopes during the day anyways.
 
1. Not really, just make sure you leave it in it's case for a while when you go indoors. That way it will warm up slowly and there won't be as much condensation. A good suggestion is to get a couple of bags of silica and stick them in the camera bag, they can suck any excess moisture out too.

2. I would take the 17-50 and the 70-200, the 17-50 would be good for those landscapes and the 70-200 is just long enough for action shots. Do you have a CPL?

3. Overexpose what the camera suggests by between 1-2 stops to get nice white snow, and shoot RAW as you will probably end up having to push it a bit more, and adjust the white balance (cameras don't like snow, it's too white).

What I would suggest though is only take the camera on a few days, days you want to concentrate a bit more on photography instead of tearing about on the blacks and of piste, just incase you fall over. The camera can take a bit of punishment if you have it wrapped up well but if you land on it at top speed its not going to be very good for it :p

I've taken my stuff skiing twice and had no problems at all, yes it can be a bit of a pain but you'll regret it if you don't (and always on the days you don't take it out!:D).
 
Sounds like you ve been skiing before so you should be fine. :) Helps when your not worrying about falling on the camera the whole time.

I agree with what Amp said, other than that you should be fine.
 
A good suggestion is to get a couple of bags of silica and stick them in the camera bag, they can suck any excess moisture out too.
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ideally they need to be inside an sealed container (i.e. - ziplock freezer bag) with your camera and/or lenses.
 
neil_g said:
ideally they need to be inside an sealed container (i.e. - ziplock freezer bag) with your camera and/or lenses.
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Good point.:)

I haven't actually used the silica Gel packs tbh, never seen the need for them, but a lot of people seem to like them.
 
i had a load come with some HP SAN kit once so i used them and i aquired some freezer bags from mums kitchen and sealed up all my kit for bugjam last year. luckily i didnt need to rely on them in the end mind as it only rained for one day.
 
Thanks for the info guys. The camera would only come out for two days at most. Just want to get some good shots then enjoy the skiing. This will be my 8th trip to the slopes so I'm not too worried about having it in my rucksack, more worried about not getting some good shots lol.
 
It's worth thinking about batteries too. I would keep a fully charged one in your pocket so it stays warm and ready to use if the one in your camera drains in the cold weather, which they often do.
 
turtle1000 said:
It's worth thinking about batteries too. I would keep a fully charged one in your pocket so it stays warm and ready to use if the one in your camera drains in the cold weather, which they often do.
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those chemical hand warmers are a good idea to store with your batteries..

at lydden hill saturday it was between -3 and 3 degs all day and it halved the battery life.
 
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