Blackmagic Forum

Hello,

could somebody please answer what could go wrong if you film at around 2500m. Official manual says: "Use only at altitudes not more than 2000m above sea level." (page 123).

Thank you.

As altitude is increased, the air is less dense - cooling capacity of the air is decreased as altitude increases, making heat removal via air less effective. Therefore, all electronics that rely on natural
or forced convection to dissipate heat will experience greater air and component temperature rises for the same amount of power at high altitudes.

Dielectric properties of the air change with altitude.

At higher altitude air is not as good an insulator―until you reach a vacuum.

Source

To the point, Robert.

But if it's not hot at the same time, you should be OK at just 2.500m.
Dielectric property should be a concern with much higher voltages.

Robert and Uli thank you both. That slideshow is to the point.

I hoped it was only fan cooling. Since there will be 10 to 20 degrees Celsius plus max it should be OK I guess. We will shoot on 3350m also, but not for longer periods of time and there will be even colder.

We intend to test the camera beforehand on those altitudes, possibly buy second unit for safety and have trusty 5DIII ML RAW enabled just to be sure. Kinda funny, but that hacked camera never let us down in the last 5 years of using it.

Just as a fun-fact; when shooting in cold environment at those altitudes our external disk, to which we transferred our footage from CFs via laptop, were transferring at double speeds as opposed to the sea level speeds. And that happened on various occasions, not just once.

At 3350m I'd be more concerned about battery life and LCD screens.

I'll be shooting in Aspen next week for XGames. It's about 3000m so we will see how it goes. Never considered elevation when shooting so I'm glad you brought this up!

Whoa Derek! Please report how it went, whish you luck!

I found this document regarding usage of consumer laptops at 10.000 meters:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6046/529f05a65e182ac9323ef8eb26b2075d0e13.pdf

Found these infos via Google:

Screen: if it was a normal LCD it should be ok at even higher than 3500, but it is touchscreen, so I found limits at 3000-3500. But as it says in this pdf at the end, they tested 3000m rated laptop at 10.000m and didn't produce a problem. At least not going there once.

Batteries: if they are Li-Ion, they should be OK. They could explode in theory though. The bigger concern is supposed to be low temperatures not altitude. But I read that modern batteries are a lot more prone to low temperatures, so keeping them warm under your clothes when not using them can help. Using V-lock batteries should be Ok I guess.

Seals, liquids, bearings, etc.: I read that you should use manual focusing, etc.. We only use cine manual lenses, so they should be ok. Liquid oils can freeze, so you can de-grese gear, but...

Condensation: gear gets cold. Later when you put it in warmer place they can get wet inside lenses, in batteries, media. So it is good to put it all out of the camera, until it is the same temperature as the surrounding. Also you should charge batteries when they have room temperature.

Media: HDD can not go higher than 3000m. SSDs don't have problems even above 10.000m. CFs are supposed to behave similar to SSDs.

And here is a video shot at the top of the Everest with 5DIII:

https://youtu.be/NhBzhi9jPFs

So yes, for P4K the biggest concern is actually screen, but even that should be ok at 3000+m. In theory, at temperatures quite under +40 and above 0 degrees Celsius.

And 2250 m has been already proved by Florent Piovesan (OfTwoLands). So Derek its your turn to hit the 3000m mark (:

Shot in the Alps.



Ricardo Marty

I’ve been shooting with the URSA Mini 4.6K a few degrees above zero this winter. I turn the camera On powered by the Cinegears 250Wh V-lock before I secure it on a large open camera bag in the car, drive to my location, shoot, drive home, put the camera in the home and finally turn it Off. Helps having a battery that powers the camera for five hours.

In the Victoria ‘cold’ with the camera On, it I s still quite the space heater to warm the finger tips! Must be cautious though if it gets down to zero degrees.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Blaž Murn wrote:Hello,

could somebody please answer what could go wrong if you film at around 2500m. Official manual says: "Use only at altitudes not more than 2000m above sea level." (page 123).

Thank you.

I have just edited a video shot in the French Alps. The temperature was between -3°C and 5°C in average and shot at around 1600m up to 2250m (7400ft). The camera did well and we didn’t encounter anything unusual.



Hope this helps

Cheers,
Florent

Florent, thank you for posting your video. I saw it in your previous post. Your videos were also a reason for us to try the BM cameras. Been a long time Resolve user, but not cameras mainly because of the reputation from first ones.

But it is managable, today found out here about poor ir filter on sensor, heh. That too needs to be tested on P4K. Hope we get one with no corner failed screen.

There certainly is a reason why BM claims 2000m. The next standard is 5000m, so the limit is somewhere between I suppose.

And it wouldn't be a hard limit. It would depend on air temperature and use. Someone doing long takes on a hot day in full sun could run into problems at a much lower altitude than someone recording short clips in cool temperatures.