Mike Cotton

Falkland Islands…A certain TPC sound recordist – ex TVC – put his equipment overnight in a large tent warmed by industrial paraffin heaters.

The next (very cold) day he discovered what condensation was and did to the equipment!

Umpteen thousand miles from base.

There but for the Grace of God…….

Pat Heigham

That reminds me of a 17 week shoot in snowy Switzerland, where we had two 16mm Arriflex BL’s.

One was winterised with lighter oil in the mech. and was stored in a non-insulated garage lock-up and only used outside. Well – on a sudden move to interior, did they use the other camera?  No way – the winter one came inside and as it warmed up was as noisy as hell! Protestations from the sound dept. fell on deaf ears, just because the camera dept were too lazy to change the mags, if a roll was half exposed.

And yes, condensation on the back element of the lens!! And probably inside the other elements as well.

Can’t remember if they bothered to change the lens from the other camera – probably not, as the lenses were separately calibrated for each camera body.