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The difficulties of filming in such extreme environments

March 20, 2009

My name is Al Boardman, I’m the principal cameraman for Snowline Productions and have been involved in helping the team with choosing and using some of the filming equipment they have taken on the expedition with them. I have also filmed some of the pre-departure interviews of the team you can see right here on the website and I’ve helped to give Martin some advice and training on using the video camera in such tough conditions.

Martin is hugely talented and experienced with using his digital stills camera equipment in a polar environment, to quote Pen in a press conference he referred to Martin as ‘utterly bomb proof in a polar environment’. He manages to capture incredible images in conditions that make simple tasks amazingly difficult and frustrating, one cannot underestimate the dedication and effort required to simply take the camera out of it’s case and take a photo in this environment. Not to mention using a video camera as well, he certainly has his work cut out.

Using a video camera in these conditions brings with it a whole host of new issues on top of that of stills cameras. Modern video cameras actually do an amazing job of dealing with the cold and Martin’s Sony Z5 is no exception, chosen for its amazing picture quality, shooting at HDV1080i/p and weighs in at less than 3kgs with the battery (which is very light in case you were wondering!).

The sort of problems Martin’s likely to encounter on the ice with the Z5, range from the batteries losing power to the camera buttons sticking. Extreme cold prevents the chemical reaction required for batteries to work and release power, which can only be remedied by keeping the battery warm and therefore using a rotation system with one battery on the camera and another keeping warm inside your jacket. The internal workings of the camera will operate for a few hours down to about -30˚C before the tape mechanism starts to struggle and the mechanisms controlling the focus and zoom rings start to stiffen and eventually will cease to work at all, the lens regularly freezes over, spindrift gets everywhere and the lcd screen will freeze at about -20˚C making it unusable.

As if that isn’t enough to contend with, the real difficulty lies in actually using the camera in the cold. It’s a real juggling act between making sure you can operate all the rings and buttons on the camera to achieve the best possible shot, and avoiding getting frostbite as you’ve had to remove your outer gloves in order to do this!

Martin will be taking measures to help protect the camera from the extreme cold and harsh conditions: a protective insulated cover for the camera will help shield it from the elements, using chemical hand-warmers can help field a modicum of heat back into the camera and specially designed cold-weather batteries. Not to mention a combination of really good gloves!

Posted in 2009, Blog, Operations