the first measurable snow fall fell on chicago last night. i did some searching of the forums and didn't find anything interesting except keeping the batteries in ones pocket and wrapping the battery grip with warmers. i wanted to know if digital slrs are ok to use in cold conditions. i've found places online that say the display freezes and may damage pixels. is this a myth, what should a photographer know about shooting in cold condtions? this would be my first winter with my digital slr and of course like us all we treat them like babies.

the only experience i had was a few years ago in the upper peninsula of michigan. i used a canon eos 2000 rebel in minus 40 deg fahrenheit (w/o windchill) for one week. the camera was both in my jacket and in my camera bag. i had no problems what so ever ecept the camera lens fogging. before that trip i've read that the mechanical oils in the camera should be taken out so they dont freeze.

i've read that the mechanical oils in the camera should be taken out so they dont freeze.This really applies to older mechanical cameras. I haven't had any problem with a Nikon F100 in serious cold, and it never needed any service.

Judging by your experience you probably know to overexpose a little for snow, because all of that white will fool the camera's meter. I haven't had a problem with my DSLR (Fuji S2) in cold weather, but don't use it like this too often. The reason is that the 4xAA batteries don't last in it in below freezing temperatures. This camera also uses a pair of lithium batteries (kind of a mutt, isn't it!) and those hold up fine. I've got some lithium AA's to try, and that should make it work much better. I've seen a lot of work from DSLR's in really cold environments - but mostly from the high end cameras. Guys who were shooting Nikon F5's using Nikon's D1X, D2H, etc - cameras like this might handle the cold better.

I haven't had any problems with my DSLR in the cold and I don't think they require any special treatment vs a film SLR. One thing I would be carefull of tho is keeping your camera in your coat. Your body heat will keep your camera warmer than it would be in the case, and that little bit of extra warmth my cause things to fog up when you take your camera out of your coat. That moisture that ends up on your lens, and viewfinder, could creep it's way inside your gear and cause some problems for you down the road. I would just use the case and skip keeping it inside your coat. It might not be as handy, but I think it's a little safer for you gear.

I have heared that, before going indoors, it's convenient to enclose the camera (and lenses) into a zip bag, and keep it there some minutes to avoid abrupt temperature differences and condensation on the lens.
But i never been on the snow, so don't know for sure. Maybe sometime i will take vacations on winter, and visit Bariloche. That city is beautiful, in any time of the year.

i've found places online that say the display freezes and may damage pixels.

I don't know about damage, but extreme cold will slow down an LCD display.
When the temperature gets down below freezing overnight, in the mornign my car's LCD display on the trip computer takes a few seconds to change the image.

From my experience as the car warms up the display update speeds up, until as I feel warm the display is working normally.

I think that what ought to be liquid crystal is getting to be sludge :)
As the viscosity increases with lowered temperature, the electric field across the LCD pixels isn't strong enough to flip the orientation of the molecules quickly.

I don't know at what point a LCD will cease to function altogether, or if it will permanently fail or will resume functioning if it is allowed to warm up naturally.