How to survive the Las Vegas heat as a Photographer in Las vegas

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Tip #1 …Stay indoors !

Ok just kidding but when it does get to 110 as it has today , I try not to leave the house it’s just too hot. But if you have to ,and I have many times here are a few tips to keep your self and your equipment safe:

1. Excessive heat can really play havoc with your gear, your batteries can and will explode it left in direct sunlight  in a car, it also drains the life out of them depending what kind of batteries you have, this something you really might not think about until  it’s too late , most battery pack have warnings on them and should be heeded in these conditions.
2. This has happened to me, check your eye piece, in most cases they’re black and rubber, and as such get extremely hot, this is more for video  type eyepieces  as I mention I found out the hard way getting a very nasty burn all around my eye and that took months to heal. 
3. Leaving any equipment out in direct sun in the desert in a bad idea at any time of year , leaving your camera  with out a lens cap even worse as the sun light is intensified  and will burn the camera back and the heat will destroy  either the film or digital chip. Same goes for the viewfinder , on cheaper cameras the housing will melt on video cameras  it will destroy the optics.
4. Never under estimate the power of the sun, even in cloudy weather, not that we get much here in Las Vegas ,but you can still get a nasty sun burn, simply put you should take the  ‘sun’ out of the equation here and call it what it is a 2nd or 3rd degree burn, wear a hat really important, in fact in Australia by law children have to have head protection (called a hat) protecting you head and neck will help to avoid heat stress or stoke, no joke. you should also keep drinking water and gatorade , too much water will flush important salts from your system and that can be very dangerous, you should drink until you feel full and continue to do so all day and night, as temps here in the heat of the night are still 90+.
5. Now you’ve looked after your self and gear , so what about your car or truck , needless to say check fluids all of them, tire pressure to, a blow out in the middle of the desert is no fun, but I’ll bet you’ve not thought about getting a serious burn from your seat belt, needless to say the buckles get super hot  as does every thing , seats steering wheels , emergency brake handles  and door handles, all you can do is be aware .

So barring all this in mind, happy photographing in the Las Vegas desert it’s not a jungle out there is an inhospitable hot, dry, photographer unfriendly , car killing,tire bursting desert ! Enjoy!   This photographic public service is brought to you by the letter ‘H’ for hot and Costellophoto Las Vegas photographer  702 459 3121