Not sure if this is the correct place for this question.
After today I would really like to know what kind of gloves anybody can recommend for cold weather shooting.
I was out in 0 degrees with 20-below wind chill. Although I have made it through most of the winter with conditions like this, today was really bad when my hands started thawing out.
I have a pair of those gloves James. I'm not sure how cold it was when you used them, but they don't keep my hands warm when it gets really cold at the Bosque. They're great when the temp is in the 20s and 30s though.
I use a pair of hunting gloves made out of wool. They also have finger holes to allow your fingers to protrude if necessary. Wool is good in that it will keep you warm even if wet.
I picked up a pair of wind/waterproof thin gloves at REI(don't recall the brand) and wear them under a pair of Glittens(flip back mittens with the fingers cut out). I usually have my left hand completely covered and my right is open. I can adjust all controls, but taking out the battery is a bit frustrating. This worked great at -3 WC -20ish.
Dug
Having recently returned from Lake Winnipeg photographing Great Gray Owls in -20(F) weather, I have found the best option to be lightly lined, suede leather mittens with mega-hand warmers. I find that I can still operate the shutter through the material and my hands stay warm. I've been using the same mittens for the past three winters in sub-zero (F) weather with no problems.
The latest hand warmers I found were good for 24 hours and were excellent.
When I used to do a lot of diving up here in B.C. and believe me it's cold in the winter we used to use a cream that we treated our hands and feet with. I wonder if that would help. Can't remember the name but I could find out easily enough.
I've been photographing for three winters now. I guess that's a bit of experience, but I actually got frostbite this January. Took about 3 weeks before my hands were back to normal. I think there's a fine line between recoverable frostbite and permanent injury. Winter protection is very important.
After this, I found some really good mits at Bass Pro. They're a flip mit, but they have an inner glove lining. So when I flip the top part of the mit, my fingers aren't exposed, and it's easy to flip the mit part back. I find I can operate the camera very efficiently through the glove part. Because it's a layered mit, that helps prevent heat loss, too. Unfortunately, there's not a manufacturers name on the mits - just a thinsulate logo and heatmax logo (they can be used with heatmax chemical heat packs). Maybe check out Bass Pro. Another approach might be to wear gloves that provide a good sense of touch inside of slightly oversized mits. Perhaps create you own layered flip mit with this approach.
I have tried many different types of gloves. My current combination are glomitts ( gloves with a flip front mitt)
The fingers tips of the glove are cut off, so when you flip the mitt back , you can run the controls. What I do in colder weather is to wear a pair of silk glove liners inside the glomitts so that my fingers are never completely exposed.
I also carry a around the waist handwarmer pouch, and keep a couple of disposable handwarmer packets in there.
I don't think this would fit in your situation but I use these Under Armour gloves in about 10 degree weather. Now that I'm comfortable with them I can keep them on while shooting plus they are nice and soft on the outside for when one has a runny nose.
I have an extremely high tolerance of cold, but I often wear a pair of Gore Tex mitts and keep the one on my lens hand on while shooting, and stuff my "trigger hand" into my handwarmer pocket when I'm not shooting.
My friend is a whitewater kayaker and shoots a lot of stuff in that very chilly sport...she swears by Glacier gloves, as do a few other friends I have who work in the cold all day, every day. Never tried them myself but I might be tempted. http://www.glacieroutdoor.com/
Thanks everyone.
I do use a liner glove with choppers on the one hand that holds the camera but usually only have a liner on the other hand so that I can use the camera. Last night even the hand with the chopper got cold. I think what made it worse is I got home and didn't find any of the images that I had taken worth while (had finally found a snowy on the ground/25 mile an hour winds will do that).
I will try the handwarmer packets and maybe look at wool gloves or some of the others that have been suggested. I just wish it would get warmer - but then it would be time for the snowys to leave, I suppose.
Sorry I'm late for this one Deborah but the best I've found is sticking my hands in the coat pocket as much as possible. Keep a couple of hand warmers in there work for the hands and when I rotate batteries !!!
This past trip to Yellowstone stayed out shooting for an extended time at - 32F Glove liners and the overgloves with one finger out !!
I have been using these mittens from Cabela's (http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/te...-box.jsp.form1) along with Under Armour underliners. The underliners have small rubber-like litte decals on the fingers so that they grip your camera dials. When really cold, I also use hand warmers in my mittens.
I also use the underliners themselves in Florida during the winter month.
Here north we have some very cold temperature. Those requiere very heavy glove, but not pratical for photography. The best combination I have found are a very tiny stretchable glove (cheap here at $1.00 store) under a fleece w/windgard one. when not shooting put your hand in your down jacket pocket. when I photography I only take of the right hand tick glove
I like my Aquatech gloves a lot and used them several times a 0 to -15F. You DO need to supplement them by putting your hands in your pockets frequently. If you can't do that, then the flip-mittens that someone mentioned are a good alternative. When carrying my tripod a good distance I'd shift from one hand to the other every several minutes to keep my fingertips from freezing.
Totally exposing your hands periodically could be problematic, even with the mittens, in which case you might want to combine the mittens with the Aquatechs. Just a thought.
The Aquatechs have been hunky-dory for me down into the teens without further supplement. I warm them up and put them on well before I "need" them. Just for caution, I keep hand warmer packets with me, but haven't used them this year.
I went out again today and although not as bad as the other day, still had wind chills below zero. I brought the handwarmer packets that I got at Scheels. They helped (thank you for the suggestion) but I do still need to get some kind of glove as fingers on camera hand - not good.
There is no miracle against the cold but it's important to dont manipulate the camera or the support with bare hand, heat go pretty fast away (and women are more prone to hand and cold feet) by the extremity: head, feet, hand. It is for why I use at least a small acrylic glove as a first layer and when the chance arrise put the hand in a warmer environment like the pocket and don't wait to be freeze before doing it. In windy day (colder feeling) when not too cold the mall glove are sometime enough, at least for me. Unless you have something very special in front of your camera (you don't feel the cold anyway at this time) don't let the wheater make your day miserable.
Last edited by alain vandal; 02-25-2010 at 05:22 PM.
Alain-
The snowy owls and short-eared owls have made me want to be out in the not-so-great winter weather. This is common weather for North Dakota but I am usually moving around and not staying in one place.
Same here, with my wife (she made video) we are always outside anyway. At the snowy, one year, it was so cold and windy, the tears was freezing instantly. We suffer a lot but we got nice picture and video footage.
Cold weather gloves?
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