Winter can wreak havoc on the best camera gear -- and challenge the best shooters. Indeed, nowadays the "better" the gear the more sensitive it can be. For example, the vintage mechanical shutter "manual" Nikon FM2 was well behaved in extreme winter conditions, while the many modern electronic cameras, both digital and film based, have serious shortcomings. For example, a cold weather time exposure of more than 3 hours is almost impossible with some current SLR cameras, as the batteries can't hold the mirror up for more than a few hours. Even so, just about any camera can be used for winter shooting, provided you use a few tricks, and know your camera's limits.

As for you, the most functional camera won't help if you're shivering too much to hold it, or so cold that your creative juices freeze. Below, you'll find a few tips that will help make winter outdoor photography a source for good photos -- rather than war stories and failed camera tests.

MOISTURE

A huge amount of moisture comes from your body in the form of breath condensation and sweat. So the first thing many winter shooters learn -- after they try to use a lens that rivals the best soft focus filter -- is to direct their breath away from the lens and viewfinder. In extreme conditions, you may even have to hold your breath while you focus and shoot.

Avoid carrying your camera next to your body under layers of clothing. When you pull out your rig for a shot, the warm moist air accumulated inside the camera-body and lens can cause condensation. The opposite happens when a cold camera is brought into a warm moist environment such as your clothing or a heated building -- instant condensation on all the exterior surfaces. To prevent the latter, wrap your gear in a plastic bag, and unwrap after it warms up. This trick works because it traps the dry cold air in the plastic bag. As the air warms, it even has less humidity. The result: a camera that never gets damp.

If you're only shooting outside keep your camera outside when you go in for lunch or a warm-up. While on the trail carry your camera in a chest pack, fanny pack or belt bag so it is always acclimated. If you must change camera environments, such as going in and out of a building, allow your equipment an adjustment period before use. Remember that cold equipment left in a bag will take longer to acclimate, so if you're in a hurry take it out, but use the plastic bag trick mentioned above, or just use a lens cap if the camera was not extremely cold.

BATTERIES

Even with proper camera acclimation, shooting in winter can still be more than a simple click. On truly arctic days, without proper preparation and equipment, your battery may be too cold to juice your camera. You can prevent this in several ways. At the simplest, carry a spare battery (or set of cells) inside your clothing and replace cold batteries with this. Another approach is to use an external battery pack that you keep warm under your clothing as it powers the camera via a cord. These are both kludgy solutions -- forget them. Instead, get batteries the perform well in the cold: Lithium, rechargeable Nicad, or rechargeable Nickel Metal Hydride.

Use Nicads or Nickel Hydride whenever possible. Lithium is the best in the cold, but they're costly and not rechargeable. Moreover, rechargeable batteries help our environment by being reusable. On average, a photog will discard one Nicad for every 100 Alkaline batteries, and even discard fewer NmH batteries.

What Nicads or Hydrides to buy? If you're on a budget and have a light shot schedule simply buy brand-name Nicads at any discount store. Nicads are made in three factories world-wide, so quality varies little. Problem is, these generic Nicads have much less capacity than an alkaline AA cell. Of course, extreme cold somewhat obviates the alkaline, but if you're buying Nicads why not use them all the time? The solution is a higher capacity Nickle Metal Hydride battery, as described here. Carry your batteries in a manner that prevents physical damage, shorting, and keeps them dry. I looked far and wide for a good plastic container that would hold six AA cells. The closest I came is the packaging that Playdough is sold in. With a bit of tape reinforcement these have served well, though they eventually crack. Another idea is to buy batteries that come in plastic shells, then re-use the shells. (I'd appreciate hearing any reader's ideas for AA battery storage).

Some cameras don't use AA cells or anything rechargeable. In the case of cameras that require button cells or other small cells, Lithium is your only choice for cold weather, and they work well. Yet be forewarned, lithiums die with no grace period "fade" -- so always carry an extra. Sadly, it's a different story with many modern cameras that use larger Lithium cells to power film advance, autofocus and other gewgaws. These cameras are extra-sensitive to voltage drop. In the cold, they eat Lithium cells like a monkey eats peanuts.

FILM DAMAGE

Another problem, especially in extreme cold, is film breakage or stripped sprocket holes (when not using a digital camera, of course). To prevent these snafus switch your power winder to slow speed, or wind slowly by hand. (Cameras using 120 film have less problem with this since the film has no sprocket holes and is anchored by the paper backing). Know how to check your film advance -- and keep your eye on it. With manual cameras and some power wind cameras (such as the F4) just watch the rewind crank when you advance the film, it will not move if the film is not advancing. Most electronic cameras are more arcane, but usually have a way of checking film advance. The 80008 beeps and shows the film icon on the LED if it senses a problem. Even with stripped sprocket holes, most modern cameras will continue to pull the film, but it may move unevenly from frame to frame. About the only way to know this is happening is by the sound of the film advancing. In either case, the best solution is to open the camera and remove the film. You can save your shots by doing this in the dark, and storing the film in a light proof container. A Kodak film canister works well for this -- label it well! How do you get total darkness in the backcountry? Get out your sleeping bag, find some shade, and use it as a changing bag. At night, you can do the same thing by just using a jacket or sweater (with film in the 50 to 400 E.I. range). In more civilized settings include a small changing bag in your kit.

SNOW WARS

Other moisture problems arise from that ubiquitous winter substance: snow. Dropping your gear in the snow may seem like a disaster, and it may well be if your camera is open. However, if the body is closed, the situation looks worse than it really is. Just brush as much of the white stuff as you can from the surface then set the equipment in the sun to dry. Even in subfreezing temperatures the small amount of snow left on the surface will sublimate rapidly. If it's snowing while you're shooting and your camera gets coated, don't worry if the snow isn't melting -- just brush it off. Carry a small medium-stiff paint brush for snow removal. If the temperature is hovering around 32 degrees, your gear can get pretty wet. At that point call it just as you would if you were shooting in the rain; you should know the tolerance of your camera to moisture. It helps to use a generously sized rubber lens hood to keep snow off the lens. If you must shoot in a wet snow storm cover your camera with a plastic bag. Also, always keep a filter on your lens, and a plastic bag of tissue in your pocket. Cleaning a filter in the middle of a snowstorm with gloved hands is much easier than dealing with the surface of an expensive multi-coated lens. Some digital cameras make it difficult if not impossible to attach a filter. Don't buy such a camera for outdoor winter photography.

CAMERA TOTES

Your bag and strap system should guard against dropping your camera and allow quick entry and egress from a protected, yet acclimated environment. Many outdoor pros use a large fanny pack for a camera bag. A fanny pack is carried on the hips by a simple strap around the waist, and can be quickly rotated from an out-of-the-way position behind you to an accessible frontal position. You can wear a fanny pack at the same time as a small back-pack. This makes for a versatile system. Another method of totage, useful when you need a large backpack that would get in the way of a fanny pack, is to mount a foam padded chest pack directly to your pack shoulder straps. In this case you can carry accessories in a small bag mounted on the waist belt of your backpack. If you plan on being active, anchor the bottom of your chest pack to your waist belt so it won't bounce.

The quality fanny packs designed for camera gear are padded with semi-rigid foam. While open they function as a shelf to aid in film and lens changes. Before you buy a fanny pack, load it with your gear and make sure it will cantilever from your waist as you remove and replace equipment. I have one photog friend who, for the longest time, regularly dumped his lenses on the ground from a defective fanny pack.

To keep things simple figure that the foam padding in your bag is taking the place of lens cases and front caps. Leave a glass filter on the front of your lenses for protection. If you have one filter you use often, buy enough for all your lenses so your not constantly swapping. If the lens is off your camera use a back-cap. Above all, plan your camera access. Many would-be photographers bury their equipment in a backpack or awkward bag, and then miss once-in-a-lifetime images.

CAMERAS, LENSES, ETC.

Your best course of action in choosing cameras and lenses for winter, whether for back-country or roadside work, can be summed up in three words: keep-it-simple. Out in the wilds, many excellent photographs have been made with compact cameras. But with these cameras it can be frustrating to have only one lens (usually a wide-angle), or have a zoom that seems useful, but ends up not being sharp. Another problem with many point-and-shoots is the difficulty of overriding the automatic exposure mechanism when dealing with large expanses of snow. At the least, you need an automatic camera with an exposure compensations setting.

If you have a camera with interchangeble lenses, a good compromise between weight and variety is to carry a reliable body and a wide range zoom lens. But, remember that traditional landscape photography requires a quality lens, especially if you want blow-ups. For more variety, carry a wide angle zoom and telephoto zoom. Zooms are not perfect: they lack good depth-of-field scales, have poor hoods, and can be heavy. As an alternative, simply carry several regular (prime) lenses -- perhaps a wide angle and medium telephoto. Try leaving your so-called "normal" 50mm lens at home -- you might be surprised at the improvement in your shots. Keep filters on all your lenses for protection, skylight filters work well as "permanent" glass.

Carry a tripod if you can not live without it (I can't). Remember that wind blows where you're headed, so forget the "super light" tripods. These are worse than no pod at all because they give you a false sense of security. However, you can get away with a lighter tripod by not using the center post and not fully extending the legs.

Black and white film shooters can keep a yellow 1 or 2 filter on all their lenses. This renders slightly more detail in snow, darkens the sky and separates the clouds. Having a skylight filter handy helps with low-light shooting since yellow filters suck up a great deal of light at higher altitudes. Using a red filter with black and white will render dramatic clouds and sky, but include your tripod for this -- a red can cut more than two stops from your light (and even more up where all the light is blue). Bring a flash for tight people shots, but don't expect great results unless you have the thing mastered before you leave.

With digital cameras, using filters during shooting is probably more effort than it's worth (other than keeping one attached to protect the lens), since the photos are so easy to tweak later.

To pack your circular filters, buy some "stack caps". These allow you to screw your extra filters into one stack -- very convenient. Cokin type filters are hard to pack. The best method is to leave them in their original packaging.

SHOOTING

It's possible to operate a camera with thick mittens, provided you make a few modifications. A power winder eliminates one delicate movement (though winders may have problems when cold). For the aperture ring, you can get an "underwater ring" that makes for an easier grip. With most lenses you can still rotate the focus with gloves on, but I've seen at least one photog with a focus ring thickened with layers of tape. Some cameras have a shutter release that you can press with gloves -- many do not. For the latter try a short cable release taped to the camera body, or cobble a small extension to the shutter button.

For many people correct film exposure is the hardest part of snow country photography. Sunlit snow is white, not blue -- and certainly not gray. When you meter off snow, the meter tells you an exposure that will make the snow match the tone of a gray card. In black and white that gives you gray snow, in color it gives you underexposed snow that can take an artificial blue cast. Moreover, snow is so bright that trying to meter it, then estimating how much to correct, can be futile. Use something other than snow for a meter target. Many photographers use the palm of their hand placed with full illumination of the light source, usually the sun unless you're using reflected light in the shade (if you use this technique with gloves on, standardize the glove you wear). In black and white, caucasian skin is about 1 f-stop lighter than the gray you're meter is set for, darker skin can be 1/2 f-stop lighter than "standard gray" or even about the same. So, if you meter your palm then perhaps open up your aperture or use 1 step less shutter speed, you'll be close to the correct exposure for the conditions. In other words to open up one stop: if your palm meters F11, shoot at F8. Try this technique a few times then evaluate your processed film to arrive at a standard for your own skin and style of shooting.

Whatever the case, remember to bracket your exposures. Use a set sequence for your brackets so you can check your exposures back home. A common sequence for black and white photography is to make your first shot at the indicated exposure, then overexpose one stop, then underexpose one stop. The reason for this sequence is that B&W is more tolerant of overexposure than underexposure, so you bracket to overexpose first in case it's a fast break shot. Photographers often bracket slide film in 1/2 stop steps. Digital cameras may not require as much bracketing as film, but don't hesitate to expriment. I frequently shoot two bracketed shots of a digital landscape, one exposed for the land and one for the sky, then combine them in Photoshop to get the best of both.

If you know the technique, a bit of fill-flash can help reduce contrast and separate the background in your tight shots. But it takes a lot of light to fill shadows in a sunny snowscape, so carry a powerful flash such as the Nikon SB-24. Before you decide to lug a flash, consider winter light. At times you'll get beautiful fill light from reflection off the snow, and since the sun stays at a low angle winter light is quite forgiving most of the day. Another technique for fill light is to carry a collapsible circular reflector. Jokingly known as an "elephant diaphragm", these provide nicely balanced fill for tight still shots. They also cost less than a flash.

Finally, if the weather gets bad keep your camera handy. Some of your best lighting for character portraits and the like may be in the middle of a snow storm. Also, get out of bed early. Your snow will have better modeling with diffused morning side light -- sort of like having a great light-box in the sky. Above all, remember to keep shooting. It's easy to forget your camera when you're cold -- or just excited about being out of doors in winter.