These frozen AX5s came out of a UPS freezer room on a commercial I was gaffing.
And I mean frozen; like -20F!
I had all my AX5s and Titan tubes in a freezer room at UPS. It is a credit to build quality of Astera lights that they worked perfectly in this difficult environment.
The lights were in the room for about 2 hours. Output and performance seemed normal. The lights responded instantly to the app like they normally do. The only thing I did different was to dowse the lights when they were not needed to save battery life.
We did have a tech scout. I was told by a UPS person, that the freezer was 0F. I had some concerns because I have never used Astera lights in very cold temperatures.
Checking the Astera specs, the lights are only rated down to 32F. This surprised me. We often work in much colder conditions in the winter.
I made a call to my Astera sales and tech guy. (Greg Hodges at Wireless Film Lights. He is awesome!) He assured me that they should be okay in the zero degree freezer but I might experience reduced run-time (battery life).
On-the-day, I found out the freezer room is actually -20F and often much colder if no one has been in the room for awhile. (I call it a room. It was a large warehouse space that had forklifts driving in-and-out of it.)
I was surprised and concerned for the lights but went ahead and placed all the lights in the freezer. The room felt every bit of -20F. It was physically painful to be in the room.
We were not actually shooting in the freezer room thankfully. We were shooting in an adjacent refrigerated room. You could see into the freezer room from large windows.
The lights were like blocks of ice when I took them out of the freezer. I'm guessing it took at least an hour for the AX5s to thaw out.
Once the lights were up to room temperature, I checked them. Every light worked perfectly. I'm even more impressed with the build quality of Astera lights. They are the best!
PS: I was thinking more about the 32F temp rating for the Asteras.
I'm guessing it is not so much that they can't work in colder temperatures but that battery life and maybe the color quality are compromised at colder temperatures. My guess is the Asteras are operating at optimal performance down to 32F. Colder temperatures are going to compromise their performance.
I did not notice any performance issues in the -20F freezer room but I did take steps to save battery life by turning the lights off whenever not needed.