TG-2 Review

BorisK1 wrote:

Boofhead wrote:

[...] Re my first TG-2 fogging, I read somewhere (don't you hate it when you can't remember where you read it) that the battery heats up when the camera is used and this can raise the internal temperature of the camera which can lead to temperature differences between the inside and the outside of the camera, thus condensation forming inside.

The heat from the battery would actually reduce the problem.  The condensation forms as the air trapped inside the body gets cooled below the dew point temperature.  If the heat from the battery could keep it above that point, you'd get no fogging.

If I get this problem again on my TG-2 I'm going to give it to the kids to play with and I'll go back to the 820 (never had any fogging probs). Thanks all

I doubt that the exact camera model has much effect on the fogging.  It would be interesting to do an experiment - hold both cameras open for a while (to make sure they have the same dew point temperature), then gradually cool both of them down, and see if one fogs up at a lower temperature than the other.  My prediction - they'll both fog down at exactly the same temperature, though the body with more plastic (810) may take a bit longer to cool down than the body with more metal (TG-2).

Now that I thought about this some more, the way the camera is built could have an affect on this.  I've been assuming that the fogging happens evenly inside the camera.  That's probably not a good assumption.  The parts to fog up first should be the "heat bridges" - the surfaces that transmit the cold temperatures from the outside.  Also, the air inside the camera might not have enough moisture to fog up its entire inner surface.  So, from this point of view, it would be good to have a dedicated heat bridge, like a copper plate on the front to transmit cold into the camera faster than the lens could.  Ideally, that heat bridge should be rough on the inside, like a heatsink, to maximise heat exchange, and to give the moisture as much "sacrificial" surface area as possible.  This should keep the moisture from the lens and from the electronics.

Another solution would be to provide a room for a small silicogen pack next to the battery compartment.