Winter Photography tip - how do you stop your lens from fogging up?

Question: How do I stop my camera from fogging up when I come inside from the cold?

Answer: Let’s look at why this happens because this is something that I constantly teach on my snowy owl workshops and Yukon workshops I run in Canada during the winter months.

When the air near the lens is cooled by the lens, the relative humidity of the surrounding air will quickly increases.  As air cools it loses its ability to carry water vapor.  Once the relative humidity reaches near 100% and greater water will begin to collect on the lens.  Even if the air is fairly dry, if the temperature difference is great enough you will get lens fog.

So how do we stop this? There are two ways. The first is to use hand warmers and place them on the barrel of the lens. This will warm up and dry both the external glass and the internal elements, help staving off mold that could grow inside your lens.

The second way could be to wrap your camera in a bag as some people say, but that creates moisture inside the lining of the bag… that I am not a proponent of… but my suggestion, and one I employ is to take your coat that you wore outside. It is the same temperature as the lens and camera. Take that coat and wrap your camera so the outer shell is against the camera. That allows the camera and lens to warm naturally, surrounded by air that is initially cool… both the air and camera gear will warm naturally and thereby eliminating the moisture and fog on your camera gear.

If you have any further comments, please add them to the comments section below. The more feedback and ideas the better.

Thanks for reading,

Kev