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Working in Extreme cold


BWilson

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My advice for extreme cold:

Put chili powder in your shoes. Seriously.

interesting... I wonder what the physics behind something like that would be...

I typically just put hand warmers inside my boots on TOP of my toes (it helps if the boot isn't too terribly snug to begin with.). This keeps my feet warm all day (or night.)

~tt

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Same physics as in eating very spicy food and getting a red HOT face from it! Accelerated blood circulation?

So just putting the powder in your shoes allows your sweating feet to absorb the irritant cutaneously, and THAT keeps you warm ?

(hmmm...I did cook with habaneros once, went to the restroom without washing my hands, and had a rather...uncomfortable cutaneous event in an unmentionable area...so who knows !)

best

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Same physics as in eating very spicy food and getting a red HOT face from it! Accelerated blood circulation?

 

1) with your face, it usually burns the eyes, nose, mouth 

2) with your feet, I wonder how much is the right amount, and if you get a blister....... ouch! 

 

i've definitely rubbed my eyes well after cutting jalapenos and yikes. I guess I didn't quite wash my hands well enough. 

 

I do keep a bottle of cayenne pepper pills with me in winter. Same theory as eating spicy food, but you can take the pill with anything and it will get your blood circulating. Some people get an upset stomach from them, so maybe test them out when you are not working a long day in the woods. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just got back from Mongolia. Thanks for all the tips. The Wodka is good, horse wasn't so good.

When we landed in Ulaanbataar, it was -20 degrees Celsius at midday. When he had made our short journey from the terminal to car the clear plastic cover on my Petrol bag cracked. It was only outside for no longer then 5 minutes. Apart from that, everything else worked a treat. 442, 416, mkh50, Canare cables. Battery wise, the NP1 lithiums dropped to about 80% capacity, and the Powerex AA's dropped to around 60-70% capacity.

Here's a few photos I took, hope you enjoy

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-20C (= -4F) That's cold but not extreme IMO. I've worked a few times in the NYS Catskill and Adirondack regions @ -10F w/ wind. Don't know why the Petrol plastic would crack unless it was bent sufficiently when cold. Never had cold temp issues with a Portabrace... though I now have a Petrol but haven't worked with it in the extreme cold.

Great pictures for sure and looks like an interesting shoot.

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Recently returned from a shoot in Lake Placid, New York at the Olympic training facilities. The temperature was in the -10F to -30F range throughout the day (with wind chill, I believe).

 

We were only outside for a stretch of about 4 hours. Prior to the shoot, I consulted with a hiker friend, who echoed much of the advice in this thread. I went with multiple "midweight" layers over a single heavier "expedition" layer. I would highly recommend merino wool for base layer and socks. The brand I have is Minus33, and it all performed wonderfully.

 

My intention was to use IEMs under my balaclava and ushanka hat. However, the cable on my crappy IEMs was very microphonic, and the clothing rubbing was driving me crazy. I ended up using my 7506s with Garfield Softies over the thin balaclava. To stay warm, I needed to take the phones off whenever possible and throw my ushanka back on, which was a bit of a pain.

 

Gloves were tricky. I wore a thin glove liner underneath oversized cycling gloves. I needed to take the outer layer off to hit record and ride the fader, and oversized gloves were faster to remove. I also wore wrist gaiters, which were ought on a whim. I LOVED them. I have long arms, and when the boom was up my wrists would've been exposed without them.

 

My equipment (Maxx, K-Tek boom, Sanken CS3e) all held up without a hitch. Like the previous poster, my Petrol cover cracked at some point in the day. In anticipation of the cold, I built a few cables out of Canare L-4E5C, which retained a high degree of flexibilty. The cable on my 7506s was frozen stiff within about 10 minutes.

 

The A camera was a RED Scarlet. Camera department resorted to taping hand warmers all over the thing to keep it alive.

 

Closing thought: I will not soon forget the experience of using a porta potty in this weather.

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Ha! Specifically I think the touchscreen monitor was becoming unresponsive.

Not sure about the Epic or Scarlet, but we had a Red One "freeze up" in a cold Pennsylvania winter (so cold, but not Arctic). It wasn't the batteries. They powered it down during a move (all outdoors on Gators) and it was off for about an hour. They eventually warmed it up slowly with a propane heater. At least it kept the fan speed down when we got it rolling.

I was using my Fusion on that job and I don't remember the screen being unresponsive at all. At the most, maybe it got a little slow to draw but I don't even distinctly remember that happening.

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