Low temperatures

[LL]

Looking for an electric blanket for K10D !
After being excited about K10D I took it out for a while 15 min and found out rapidly that camera's sensitivity to cold temperature is rather poor  . Battery was freshly charged. In camera battery indicator was showing fully charged and within about 10 min. camera was dead. Temperature was - 18 C which has never been a problem witth
any other equipment I owned. ( Nikon CP 5000 managed to live for half an hour in
- 30 C.) I spend hours in much colder days so I kind of expect much better than this  .
LL

[Joshua Hakin]

Definitely a bummer to have it die out so soon!
It may be the battery, so it's best try a different one before ditching the body.
I did a shoot this weekend in -16ºC for an hour (portraits at that too!)
And I had no problem, and it did about 180 shots... still plenty juice left.
Batteries can be finicky at times and require "conditioning" by fully charging it and depleting a couple times before trying extreme weather conditions.

[manual_focus]

I agree with Joshua.
  There have been enough posters of using the K10D in temperatures down to -30 C that I would suspect batteries, not the camera per se.

[LL]

The battery indicator did show battery fully charged . I'm in no way going to replace the body. LL

[leto78]

The problem is not the K10 body, just the battery indicator or in the worse case scenario, the battery.
Battery indicators are not very reliable because they estimate the battery charge based on the voltage it is outputting.
On the other hand, battery chargers, measure the amount of current they can pass through the battery to know when it is charged.
A quick charge will make the battery output a voltage level comparable to a fully charged battery, even though it will not last long.


On another topic, cold temperatures should produce great photos because it reduces the electronic noise in the sensor.

[AndrewShirley]

I've had my camera out in cold weather on several occasions now - I live in Canada  .

No problems at all.

- Andrew

[LL]

OK, I purchased new battery and I give it an another try when it gets - 20C or so.

[LL]

I purchased new battery and charged it. Went for a walk late at night to photograph ice sculptures down town. Temperature was about -15C. I managed to get about 1/2 an hour out of each battery with minimal ammout of images taken. K10D works very well. Final solution to this matter will be more frequent hot chocolate brakes at Starbucks.