When I go to very humid locations for photography, like rainforests and swamps, keeping my camera gear protected from the humidity is one of my top concerns. Lens fogging, fungal growth, and water damage are all risks to your camera equipment in the tropics and similar environments. It’s not unusual for gear to cease functioning after prolonged exposure to humidity. In this article, I’ll give you the run-down on how to take care of your camera gear in humid conditions.
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Will the Humidity Damage Your Camera Gear?
Humidity itself will not harm photography equipment directly, but it’s still a problem to deal with. The most obvious reason is that mold/fungus can grow on your equipment, especially in your lens, if you store your gear in humid conditions for long periods of time.
Another concern (less of a long-term issue) is that your lens or viewfinder can fog up if it’s very humid outside, becoming momentarily inoperable.
If you’re taking a trip to humid regions like the tropics, especially the rainforest, you have reason to be concerned about the wellbeing of your gear. Luckily, there are practices which reduce the risk of issues associated with humidity.
Camera and Lens Fogging
Imagine that you’re in the rainforest. You see a jaguar that just captured its next meal, and you raise your camera to document this incredible moment. But the camera’s autofocus searches, and all you see through your viewfinder is a low-contrast blur. You realize your lens has fogged up. Even though you desperately wipe away the fog, it returns within seconds – it’s inside your lens, too. The opportunity passes, and the jaguar returns to the trees with its meal.
Trust me, you never want to be in this situation. Sometimes, the air is so wet that condensation is very hard to avoid. Let’s try to understand why condensation occurs on your lens, and what you can do about it.
1. Why Does Fog Condense on Camera Lenses?
A camera lens fogs up when the lens itself is at a temperature below the climate’s dew point. Dew point is the atmospheric temperature at which condensation will occur on a surface. The more humidity in the air, the higher the dew point, and the higher the risk for lens fogging. This is why camera fogging is prevalent in the tropics, or hot and humid summer days.
2. Avoid Air Conditioning
One of the most common ways photographers fall victim to lens fogging is to go from an air-conditioned space to a hot, humid environment. In this situation the camera is much cooler than the dew point outside, so condensation rapidly accumulates on the lens and camera. Even if you wipe it off, it will continue to accumulate until the camera warms up to be above the dew point.
To avoid fogging when you leave an air-conditioned space, you can keep your camera in a Ziploc bag until the camera warms up to the outside temperature. Once acclimated to the surrounding temperature, you can open the bag, because fogging won’t be an issue.
3. Persistent Fogging
There are times when there is no temperature change, but your camera may seem to spontaneously fog up. In my experience, this occurs when lots of water has accumulated either in my camera bag, or worse, in my equipment. In these cases, it seems to be the evaporation of the existing moisture in your equipment that causes it to fog.
Like all fogging issues, it is best to prevent them from happening in the first place. This can be done by simply keeping your camera gear as dry as possible. If your camera does get wet, let it dry slowly rather than heating it. Then there’s always the classic “put it in a bag of rice” tip (and its variants) for stuck moisture – if you can find a bag of rice that’s big enough for your camera.
Lens Fungus and Mold
As bad as lens fog can be, the bigger long-term concern is lens fungus and mold. Once fungus starts growing in your lens, there is no good way to undo the damage. It is usually very difficult and expensive to repair.
Lens fungus usually looks like a white mat that spreads over the glass:
Fungus that’s particularly bad can make your photos washed-out and soft. It will also add severe lens flare to your photos in backlit conditions, such as when the sun is in your frame.
It’s best to prevent mold or fungus from growing in the first place by keeping your camera gear dry. That can be difficult in high-humidity environments, but it’s not impossible. Below are some tips on how to keep your gear dry.
Tips to Keep Your Camera Dry in the First Place
1. Stay Aware of the Conditions
Extra caution should be taken when you’re shooting in humid conditions. It may sound like common sense, but I have to stress it.
In dry conditions, a splash on your camera may not be a big deal; those water droplets would evaporate on their own quickly. The same isn’t true in humid areas, where water may find a home in the nooks and crannies of your equipment and be there to stay. Little stowaway droplets like these are what raise the risk of mold the most.
So, more than usual, be careful around splashes, rain, and droplets falling from trees. Keep your gear inside your camera bag as much as possible, and avoid changing lenses if it’s raining or even in heavy fog. This may sound like being over-careful, but keep in mind that “ordinary” things you’d do in dry areas can result in fungus or mold in the tropics.
2. Use Ziploc Bags and Silica Gel Packets
When I’m shooting in the rainforest, I keep my camera and each lens in its own Ziploc bag with a couple of silica gel desiccant packets. This keeps my gear dry when I’m not using it, and it helps dry it out again after each usage. The idea is to store your gear in a low-humidity environment that sucks away any pockets of water.
There are many different desiccants on the market. I like the silica gel packets, especially the color-indicating silica gel that changes color as it becomes saturated with moisture. Once a packet is saturated, it no longer removes humidity from the air and must be replaced (or dried out again). The silica gel I use is reusable if microwaved. Even so, I recommend bringing plenty of packets on a trip in case you go through them quickly and don’t have access to a microwave.
There are some desiccants that you should be sure to avoid, such as desiccating salts, because they start to sweat once they become saturated. In other words, they become a liquidy mess – a disaster in the camera bag (I speak from experience). Stick to the silica gel packets; they work like a charm.
3. Create a Dry Box
To prevent mold from growing on your camera equipment long-term, store your gear in a sealed box loaded with desiccant when not in use. (Air conditioning acts like a very large dry box – so, you only need to bring something separate if you’re staying in a place without air conditioning).
Any sealable box which fits your gear and can be packed in your luggage gets the job done. I fill the dry box with silica gel packets and a hygrometer to measure the humidity. I strive to keep the box below 70% humidity to prevent mold from growing. For a shorter trip (under two weeks) there may not be much of a concern for mold. For anything longer, or if you live in the tropics, I highly recommend utilizing a dry box.
Another perk of a dry box is that it can work like a camera hospital. Twice now, I have been given cameras that had spontaneously stopped working in the tropics from people who took none of the precautions in this article. Out of options, I placed the camera in my dry box for a couple days to see if that would help. Lo and behold, they came back to life afterward.
4. Always Bring a Rain Cover and Poncho
A heavy downpour can come out of nowhere in tropical regions, and other humid areas, so always have a rain cover for your camera bag. I’d double down by also getting a large poncho that fits over yourself and your bag when you’re wearing it. If your gear is packed in Ziploc bags as recommended above, and you have a rain cover for your camera bag plus a poncho on top of that, you and your gear can survive even the heaviest of downpours.
Ponchos are better than rain jackets because they can go over your camera bag conveniently and can be packed very small. A poncho is also much cheaper. Don’t be fooled by the more expensive ponchos available online. A $5 poncho works just fine. Even a trash bag works in a pinch!
Conclusion
I hope this article has helped you prepare your photography gear if you live, work, or visit the tropics. With the right precautions, you can keep your camera safe in the rainforest, swamps, and other humid environments with no issues at all. By keeping your gear dry and following the tips in this article, you reduce the risk of humidity-related issues, so you can capture every moment.
Rice break down into a fine powder/dust; in fact on one of the Nikon videos for the Z9 the photographer specifically recommended against using rice as a desiccant because of the powder issue, FYI
hi nicholas, this is a super helpful article. do you have a recommendation for the quantity/weight-amount-ratio to equipment of the silica gel desiccant packs? I am trying to figure out what quantity to take with me going to the lowland amazon rainforest in peru with high humidity for up to 6 weeks. I have no chance to recharge the packs as long as in the forest. your insights are much appreciated!
Hi there!
How quickly the packets are used up is really dependent on how much humidity gets into your ziploc bags/drybox, camera bag, on your gear, etc. So for example I may have to switch out the silica packets after only one day after a particularly wet photoshoot (which I recommend avoiding as much as possible). So I can’t give you a quantity/weight ratio for the packets, but I’d recommend the following:
When in the camera bag, have each item in a ziploc bag with at least a couple silica gel packets, these should remain dry for a few days minimum if not overused.
If that is too inconvenient (it is for me at times), at least keep your gear in a dry box like I outlined in the article. For that, throwing in a solid dozen 10 gram packets should be enough for a camera body, 2-3 lenses, and a flash or other item for about a week by my estimation and experience. Maybe an extra couple packets per item.
That is assuming you’re not putting dripping, or water logged gear into the box. It’s important to dry everything going into the dry box before putting it inside, so that you conserve desiccant packs. Definitely look for a hygrometer to make sure the box stays dry. You’ll see that simply switching out packets when it become over 70% humidity will quickly reduce the humidity.
I think you should be easily covered with three bags of 30X 10g packets for your trip. They are cheap and easily packed so probably worth being conservative. Maybe throw in an extra if you think you’ll be particularly wet in the field. I’ve never needed over two of those bags for my extended trips. Just be mindful of saturating them with wet gear.
I hope you have a great trip! Let me know if that all makes sense.
Thank you for that great information, well worth bearing in mind. I live in Queensland Australia (quite warm & humid) to make things worse I volunteer in an environment centre located in mangroves alongside an estuary. I’m strictly amateur & have a weird assortment of gear which I have picked up along the way. I always keep silica gel packets in my camera bag & change them regularly. Almost as an aside, when I was fitted out with hearing aids a while ago, the audiologist included a “clean & dry box”, basically a small box that the hearing aids go into at night, when switched on it bathes the aids in UV light for 3 minutes to kill fungus, then switches to a drying fan for 3 hours, seemed like a good idea, so after a trip to the local electronic hobby store I have a sealed plastic box, big enough to hold my camera & a couple of lenses, a UV light & a small electric motor with a fan blade are mounted inside the lid of the box powered by batteries. No auto switching (maybe one day) but I have a couple of switches mounted on the box, so I can run the UV, the fan. I’m not able to do any A- B testing to compare results, with & without the box but feel that the measures may be helping.
Some really great tips there, thank you.
Avoid extreme heat…. That should hv been on your list. I accidentally left my Nikon D7200 in my truck… still works, memory card ok, view screen partially damaged.
These are useful tips. Let me start by saying this: but I can’t help shake the feeling that my gear doesn’t do that. I’ve never had issues when shooting DSLR (D7200 and D500 in my semi pro days) and also not when I started shooting with the Z6II and more recently (beginning of 2022): the Z9.
When it comes to humidity issues and weather sealing, I have complete faith in Nikon. The brand never let me down when shooting in extreme downpours or hot and humid environments. I’m from The Netherlands, which isn’t the tropics but we certainly know rain and humidity here..
I’ve been shooting professionally all over the world since 2016 and I never worried about weather sealing. Even when using an FTZ adapter, which is basically an added security risk because of the extra contact point, I never experienced issues.
My lenses are all high grade professional S line lenses like the f/2.8 S trinity, 50/1.2 and 20/1.8. The one F mount lens i still have and make use of regularly is the professional 180-400mm f/4E TC1.4.
Though useful still, I can’t help shake the feeling that this article simply isn’t that applicable to top level professional gear. Of course cameras and lenses of today are electronically controlled devices and we all know that electricity and water don’t go well together. But top level gear should withstand rain, fog and basically every kind of wet, both hot and cold environments. I literally can’t think of any environment here on earth where I would think of having to leave my camera gear in the bag. And I shoot all over the world as well, from tropics to deserts to arctic to mountainous (pressure level and temperatures changes combined).
In short: I trust my brand and adhere basics.
1. Don’t change lenses when in environments with significant temperature of humidity changes.
2. Dry off wet gear after a shoot in humid conditions.
3. Let gear acclimatise first after coming home (or going outside) before thinking of changing.
Then again, after the Z9 I even sought out conditions from rule 1 to test out the sensor seal cover. I can tell you that I now sometimes change lenses in conditions where one previously shouldn’t.
I think that’s largely true, but would make an exception for Cambodia! Nothing in the world seemed able to keep things from fogging up there. I had to keep wiping the lens on my camera all day, as it fogged up almost immediately even after being out for hours. Internal fog wasn’t such a problem, but no amount of acclimatizing could seem to keep the front element from fogging.
I had a 16-85 on my D7100 and my wife had an 18-140 on a D7200, and though both suffered, mine was worse.
My suggestion is that if traveling in places like Cambodia, carry way more lens cleaning cloths than you think you’ll need, and try to keep them dry.
I enjoyed and appreciate your reaction! Cambodia is on my list. So that might be happening in the foreseeable future.
Then again: I mentioned specifically the gear I’m using in those conditions. In my experience professional gear doesn’t fog up (that quickly) if you handle it correctly. The materials used in both lenses and cameras are simply… better. Albeit a fact that nothing van change the physics of nature in terms of temperature changes and moisture and so on.
Short true story:
Yesterday when hiking in the hills of Scotland near Stirling (near Glasgow), I slipped and my Z9 basically fell in the sticky mud. Back down at the bottom of the mountain, I went to the nearest pub to eat and drink something and clean the camera. But with that camera and that amount of dirt that meant rinsing it in the sink to flush away (hopefully) all the sand and mud. After drying it with a towel to get off the most of the visible moisture, I didn’t change lenses for about a day (at this point) but I already started using it about 5 minutes after the intentional splashdown. I don’t think that’s something that you could do with a cheaper camera.
Condensation of course still is a problem but that’s why I am planning three trips to the Arctic circle to gain experience with this gear in all kinds of extreme circumstances.
Cambodia still is on the wish list. Can’t wait.
I think the precautions in the article are still good for pro gear because having been to the tropics several times, there is really no comparison between the weather of Netherlands and humid environments near the equator.
In the Philippines where I am from, I store my camera and lenses in multiple “Dry Box” (or “Dry Cabinets” as this is called in many online US stores.). These are essentially glass-faced multi-level storage enclosure with a build-in dehumidifier. The enclosure also comes with a hygrometer which displays the humidity inside the enclosure.
I thoroughly wipe clean and wipe dry my photo gears before storing these inside the “Dry Box”.
These enclosures are very effective. I have not had any fungus contamination in any of the camera and lenses stored in such enclosures over several decades.
I do the same in Australia. The last 3 years have been worse than average with above normal rainfalls. I have 2 small and 2 medium dry boxes, and I organise my DSLR and M43 gear accordingly. A few years ago I had a small bit of mould inside a Nikon DSLR viewfinder. It was more expensive to have that professionally cleaned by Nikon than what I paid for all 4 dry-boxes combined. I also run a dehumidifier on particularly humid days, And clean all equipment after a shoot.
Recently got an OM-Systems OM-1 and this helped tremendously due to it’s very high level weather resistant coverage.
Thanks for the reminder about humidity. Although I live in the US (Illinois), high humidity is an issue. In my basement, the humidity can get to 75% during the summer and I’ve seen black mold in a number of locations. And guess where I keep some of my camera gear?
I do run a dehumidifier but it is not really efficient and quite noisy. Maybe it’s time to buy one of those electric dry cabinets.
This is great advice. I frequently run into internal fogging issues when I’m in Ecuador. Even thought the lens is weather proof, there is still moisture that seeps into the lens or into the space between the lens and sensor. Even the difference between night-time temperatures and daytime temperatures can cause fogging so it’s not just a problem of air-conditioned environments. In the tropics, if the glass elements are cooler than the air, you will get fogging. Nicholas’s recommendation on silica gel is the best. I found that the only way to minimize the fogging issue is to put all of my equipment in sealable plastic bags with silica every night with lens and body caps off. That usually gets me through shooting the next day if I do that.
I sort of agree but yet disagree it helped me at all. Why? Maybe because I’m part lucky and mostly because I’m blessed to live in a cool dry environment 345 days a year? However, and to get to the point…this has never happened to me once in 25 years. I’ve been all around the USA and world. Traveled to other countries and yet never experienced this issue. Is that because I have heard these tips or similar tips and subconsciously know how to do it? Maybe partly but mostly nope! That’s not it, I can say it’s much more the fact that I use a $450 camera bag and have $26,000 inside of it worth of Nikon professional gear. All the latest like D6, latest f/2.8E and f/1.4E lenses and a 500FL, D500. None of it going all the way back to N90s, F5, F100 etc., etc. So it’s not just luck? Idk but I certainly don’t think it hurts to read these tips if you don’t already know them, but don’t worry about taking your gear with you. Your gear is almost certainly tougher than you and you will typically quit and go somewhere than your gear may fog up or worse. My gear has survived countless wildfires and bumps, dirt and dust. Grass and mud, yet all looks brand new after each cleaning. So it’s possible to use prosumer to flagship gear just about anywhere in any manner and NOT worry! This is always a silly article that happens to be posted on different photography websites or YouTube. It’s good to know and learn the things you don’t already know. I’m 💯 percent for trying to learn something new each day or from each person in your lives. Long story short, don’t worry and just get the image. Gear is just a tool, an important one but a tool nonetheless!