Six habits, each answering a fault that no figure on any listing prevents.
Warm the camera in its bag, never in the room
The one irreversible risk in this list. Cold glass brought into warm air collects moisture on and inside the lens, and internal fogging takes hours to clear. Sealed in the bag it had outside, the equipment warms without ever meeting warm humid air. No title in this catalogue publishes an ingress protection code, so sealing claims are descriptions rather than grades, and they say nothing about condensation in any case.
Change lenses facing down, and briefly
Every change is an opportunity for dust. Facing the opening downward with the camera switched off removes most of it, and doing it in a bag rather than in wind removes the rest.
Clean glass in the right order, and rarely
Blow first, brush second, and use a cloth or fluid intended for the purpose only when something is actually on the glass. A protective filter takes the wear instead, at the cost of two extra surfaces for flare — a trade rather than a precaution, and the figure to match is the thread diameter.
Rotate cells instead of trusting a gauge
A gauge estimates from voltage on a curve that shifts as a cell ages, which is why a worn battery reads full and then collapses under load. A published shot count describes a new cell at ordinary temperature and nothing else. Carry spares, rotate them, and keep them warm in cold weather.
Store lenses with caps on, upright, away from heat
Objektivdeckel is its own family here for a reason: a rear cap protects the contacts as well as the glass. Heat and prolonged damp are what damages coatings and cements; a cupboard indoors beats a car in either direction.
Format cards in the camera, and use two
Formatting rewrites the index rather than scrubbing the blocks, which is why recovery is sometimes possible and never guaranteed, and why a formatted card is not a wiped one. Two cards rather than one large one is a habit, not a specification, and this site does not present it as anything else.
What people ask before they commit
How do I avoid condensation after photographing in the cold?
Put the camera in its bag before going indoors and leave it closed. The bag holds the cold air already around the equipment, and both warm together over an hour or two — nothing condenses because no warm humid air reaches cold glass. Fogging inside a lens leaves slowly and nothing safe hurries it.
Is it bad to charge a battery before it is empty?
No — partial charging suits these cells, and running one flat repeatedly does not. What ages a cell is heat and time at full charge, which is the argument for storing spares partly charged rather than topped up and forgotten in a hot room.
Last reviewed 13 September 2026