How to Keep Your Camera Lens from Freezing in Cold Weather

I hate the cold. While everyone is dreaming of shredding pow I just want to get away from it and be somewhere warm. Luckily, places are beautiful in the frozen whiteness. The problem is that when it’s cold out, like really cold, and humid gear freezes, batteries lose their power, and lens glass becomes crusted with ice ruining night shots. How do you prevent camera lenses and batteries from calling it quits? The answer is simple.

Hand warmers and Rubberbands

There’s a few “professional” options on the market for keeping your lens ice free but honestly who wants more batteries and things to charge? Hand warmers are a cheap and easy way to keep your lens and battery temperature up. Simply remove the chemical hand warmer from it’s bag and attach the packet with a rubber band close to the lens element.

Most of these chemical warmers last between 8-10 hours so if you’re shooting all night or have a time lapse going all night you should be good. Be sure to use you lens hood. The hood will help keep ice and dew away from your lens.

For batteries, you can attach these warmers directly to your camera or slider batteries and they will help keep them warm prolonging the life of your power source.

At around a dollar per package these warmers are a life saver.

There you go. That’s really it. For a few bucks you can shoot all night and come home with incredible images even if it’s freezing cold out.

I’d love to see your night and cold images! Follow me on Instagram and then tag me so I can see what you shoot 🙂

Derrick Lytle is a regular contributor to the Mountainsmith blog and a Mountainsmith ambassador. View his profile to find links to all of his social media channels.