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In very cold weather, batteries produce electricity much more slowly and less efficiently and a battery can run down extremely quickly and stop powering your camera at pretty inopportune times. In cold conditions, it’s not unusual for a fully charged camera battery to last only half as long or less as it normally would on a warm day.
For photographers who have brought only one battery, a dead battery in cold winter weather often means the end of the photography session, making it advisable to bring along multiple charged batteries. To prolong and protect the life of these spare batteries, you can keep them in the inside pocket of your coat or jacket or in a warm place.
If you find yourself out in the cold without any spares and your one and only battery has gone dead quickly, you may be able to squeeze more life out of it by removing the battery from the camera and letting it warm up a little in your pocket. You’ll typically find that once the battery has warmed up a bit, you’ll be able to take several more photos. This trick has helped me more than a few times when I thought I wouldn’t be able to take any more photos.
If you already know in advance that you’ll be heading into the cold with your camera, especially when you won’t be able to immediately charge a dead battery, it definitely pays to have spare camera batteries so you can keep taking pictures. Some photographers swear by using only OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) batteries made by their camera brands like Nikon, Canon, and Sony, while others prefer to reduce costs by using aftermarket batteries from brands like Wasabi Power. I like to carry several backup batteries with me, so I have found aftermarket batteries to be a good way to keep my costs down. You’ll want to protect any spare batteries you carry from the cold too, so be sure to keep them in a warm spot so that they’ll be able to provide the most power when you need them.