Care for lenses in cold

[Aaron Moorhead]

I'm 1ACing a RED show, and we were shooting in a cold, working meat locker the other day. We brought our lenses (an old set of Arriflex lenses, kind of an assortment) into the cold locker to get the acclimated to the cold, and we noticed several things that I hadn't really run into before because, shooting in Florida, cold is not often something I have to deal with. The lenses started sweating, of course, but the RED mount also started slipping a bit, and a few other minor differences.

 

None of this was really causing any problems, but basically, how do you care for a lens in a slightly cold environment? I didn't want the condensation getting into the optics, but it wasn't easy to keep them dry. I have a fear of opening my cases the next morning and finding them rusted to hell. How do you deal with anything on the camera shrinking from the cold? Is that something I need to worry about? My ASC manual did little to answer my questions on this (it was all for extreme weather).

 

Thanks in advance.

Edited December 9, 2008 by Aaron Moorhead

[Aaron Moorhead]

Can anyone throw some advice to me? The show's over, but I don't want to be caught unprepared to care for the lenses again.