I wrote a post 9 years ago on this topic which can be found here. I thought it might be interesting both to share the experience of what is something of an obsession and also to see what has changed in terms of my preferences over the last 10 years.
First a few caveats.
I tend to run increasingly cold with advancing age.
I am a long way down a spectrum of those behaviours where individuals are very fussy, much of the time obsessive and frequently place emphasis in different areas compared with the majority of others.
Compared with other photographers that I meet, I ‘glove up’ much earlier in the season or much sooner on a descending temperature scale.
Unless the weather is very fine, midge free and I'm out of undergrowth, I tend to feel more comfortable in gloves when I'm out with the camera
I don't use the touch screen on my cameras. I prefer making adjustments at eye level.
Sadly, deteriorating health has increased the proportion of time I spend static and my ability to rewarm by exertion.
The conclusion of the previous article was that for 80% of the time, I used MacWet gloves which work in wet or dry and manage to give a better grip than skin. When the temperature got too cold, I added the Montane Primaloft Mitts over the top. This combination worked through to the deepest winter where my Heat Company mitts took over. They are reviewed here.
The passing of time has allowed experience to accrue and technology to improve so what has changed in my daily glove usage? The short answer is not that much.
First a little background and context. Years of winter mountaineering, cold belay ledges, long waits behind other parties and 15 years on a busy Mountain Rescue team, enabled me to endure cold whenever I have to. However it also combined with my other predispositions to lead me to consider that being cold in 2025 is simply a choice or a failure to prepare properly. Such failures irritate me and distract fatally from my ability to concentrate on making photographs. If you wish to wander out in jeans, poor waterproofs, forgetting hats and gloves in 2025 then that’s up to you. Failing to prepare is, as they say, preparing to fail. I choose to be comfortable and allocate a greater proportion of my overall budget to protective clothing than some other photographers. I’m happier with a discontinued camera and good waterproofs than a state of the art sensor and being cold. For those interested in HiFi, it's akin to the budget questions about allocating funds to cables and stands.
I've added some images of the gloves in my drawer and referenced some of those which have gone. I was an early adopter of Vallerret and perhaps one of the first to sell my pair having found them useless. As a generalisation, most of the photography specific, flippy finger end gloves, while probably helpful for touch screeners, have proved hopeless for my purposes. I suspect a few key influencers have driven sales well beyond genuine effectiveness. I've yet to find any that work well in our cold wet maritime climate.
I sold my Vallerret but kept these similar Pygtech Photography Gloves.
There are a number of elements that need to be taken into account when choosing gloves for Landscape photography.
They need to offer decent dexterity to allow for the operation of buttons, dials, pads and the handling of filters or changing of lenses. They must offer a very secure grip. They need to work equally well in wet or dry conditions. Generally speaking as insulation increases, dexterity decreases. This means we either need a balanced option, a stepped set or some sort of system.
A word on waterproof gloves - after nearly 50 years on the hill, I've yet to find a glove that remained waterproof beyond a few months and only a few that even started waterproof whatever the claims of manufacturers. There's an excellent article on gloves from the inimitable Andy Kirkpatrick here. It's 17 years old now but pretty much every word still holds true. My own take has always been - forget waterproof. Go for ‘ warm when wet’.
For day to day cool but not cold ( above zero and little wind) there is still nothing in my drawer that matches the MacWet Climatec Long Cuff Gloves.
Much warmer than you’d expect but somehow cool enough to use as midge defence in the summer. Superb dexterity and grip and their performance is pretty much unchanged by rain. I think I've been using these for about 20 years and as they gradually wear out, I replace them. They are perfect. When the conditions deteriorate and hands get cold, I have usually added a pair of Montane Primaloft Mitts over the top as detailed here.
This combination takes you well into winter. I add wrist loops so the mitts can just be slipped off when more dexterity is needed without fear of losing them. They do have rubberised palms and are fine for lens changing. On my Z7 I can release the shutter, changed aperture, ISO, focus point and change lenses in them.
For deep winter, I step up to my Heat Company Mitts which are unsurpassed for extreme UK conditions. These, with a thin liner glove inside ( I use a Rab pair), go deep enough into the harshest winter conditions we ever see in the UK now. They have flip back finger ends and wrist loops if you want to temporarily take the whole mitt off. Full review here.
Over the last five years or so there has been another alternative in the bag which has seen a huge amount of use and significantly changed the proportion of time allocated to different gloves. As with the above, I looked to the outdoor rather than the photographic industry and mined the rich seam that is Alpkit.
When I'm heading out into sub zero, but not overly harsh, conditions for example a hard frost but windless morning, I'll often skip the incremental approach and go straight for a pair of Alpkit Pola gloves. These are a Primaloft filled glove with a textured grip palm and fingers. This model has since been superseded by the Shiel glove ( and mitt). These gloves are very warm and yet exceptionally flexible and allow great dexterity. They grip superbly. They were advertised as 100% waterproof. I took that with a pinch of salt, they're not but they do shed a fair bit of rain and critically, due to the Primaloft, they retain their insulation when wet. You may notice a second pair in the photo with the label still attached. I judged these gloves to be so perfect that I bought a second pair to put away in case of loss or for when they wear out.
Noteworthy Others
RAF Flight Crew Gloves
These absolute gems may be sourced if you know someone in the business or via eBay. I think they are Goatskin and they give a level of warmth, dexterity and protection that is not matched by any glove I've ever seen. They are superb for a whole host of tasks way beyond photography and their only restriction is that they’re not best suited to wet weather or highly abrasive surfaces.
Alpkit Mica Glove
These and a pair of Alpkit Frazil gloves are the most recent additions to the glove selection. They have surprised me by being masters of no specific task but performing adequately at a great many. They’ve become that ‘always worth chucking in’ gloves. Pretty warm. They cope with damp conditions. They allow greater dexterity than you might imagine. Great for driving before the heater cuts in. Highly robust for any kind of handling, loading, or other situations where lesser gloves might get shredded. I do find that I have to size up in Alpkit gloves. I measure at about medium but always have to buy Large or XLarge to get a comfortable fit. Despite their robust, winter, rope handling design, I can still operate my Z7 with them quite happily.
Sealskinz
I've had a few Sealskinz gloves over the years. Some have leaked immediately, some have leaked after a few weeks, some after a few months but all have leaked eventually. This pair have been well behaved so far and reasonably watertight in heavy rain on mild days. I like the fit and the level of dexterity. The grip is reasonable. They are comfortable to wear and introduce no tight spots. They have much to recommend them and yet rarely make the rucksack pocket as others seem to do the job better for me. They are well worth considering in my opinion as long as you view them as a consumable item rather than a long term user.
Recommendations
If you are committed to touch screens and want a glove that gives unhindered access, you’ll have to investigate either flip finger ends or touch screen tips.
If however you are happy to operate your camera with buttons and dials, I have three suggestions to make which I think are worthy of investigation.
MacWet Climatec gloves are found throughout the Equestrian, golf, shooting and many other sporting worlds. They are, in my experience, unique in that they grip equally well in wet or dry conditions. Additionally they offer superb dexterity and a very wide range of operating temperatures.
Montane Extreme Primaloft Mitts
These add over the top of the Macwets to take them into full winter conditions. Add a pair of wrist loops to allow them to be quickly slipped off while making small adjustments. My model has again been replaced, potentially by a slightly less well specified version. The current version seems to be the Respond which has lost the wrist strap tightener and the PU on the palm so losing grip. The Rab Xenon mitt seems worth consideration as it retains the better PU grip across the palm and right to the fingertips..These mitts are all lightweight offerings, suited to handling a camera or tripod. they’re not designed to be used for thrashing your way up icy gullies or mixed routes.
The Alpkit Pola gloves were replaced by the Shiel glove which was disappointingly accompanied by a critical change in specification. While they gained a touchscreen patch on the thumb, they lost their PU ‘leather’ patches on the fingers which had given the gloves such good grip. The Shiel Gloves only have the grip on the palm now. They did remove the 100% waterproof claim which was a positive as they never were.Try them as see how they feel for you. For me, they ruined a superb product. I’ve looked around and the closest glove I’ve found currently seems to be the Rab Xenon Glove. I’ve only tried these in the shop so can’t comment other than to say they seem pretty much identical and well worth a look.
As always, I’m just sharing personal opinions. I’m not seeking to argue nor claiming that my opinions carry any more value than those of anyone else. I’m sharing what I’ve found in the hope that it may help another photographer to wade through the endless array of gloves available.
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PS
If you're wearing over mitts in winter or even regularly slipping off big gloves to make camera adjustments, do consider wrist loops. You may think they look like something a toddler might wear but they keep your gloves right where you need them and prevent glove loss. Gloves loss in winter is anything from annoying, through expensive to dangerous.