[LargeFormat] Keeping Film Cool (was Re: A new departure)

[Brock Nanson]

I think it would be interesting to test the heat effects and try to quantify
the damage.  Where I live, the summer temperatures approach 40 Celsius.
Where I holiday, the temperatures can get that high as well (usually
Queensland).  I don't leave the film in the passenger compartment... the
glass gets the greenhouse effect going in a big way as you say!  I use the
trunk... much cooler, even if the paint is dark (the amount of temperature
rise in a dark car is not that much more than a lighter car - it's the glass
that counts!) and leave the film in the camera bag which is a fairly good
insulator too I've found.  If I'm not shooting black and white, it's Velvia
and I've never had an issue with unexpected colours!  Perhaps in a lab
setting with cold samples and warm samples there might be a difference
detected, but after adding polarizers, warming filters, etc, it's hard to
look at the result and say 'crap, I should have kept the film cold!'.
Colour temperature of the sun at different times of the day... sunsets...
hard to quantify.

A lab test would be interesting to try...!

Hot Mountain Dew... that's a thought I don't like to contemplate!!!  It's
bad enough cold!!

Brock

----- Original Message -----
From: "Clive Warren" <Clive.Warren@megacycle.co.uk>
To: <largeformat@f32.net>
Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 3:30 AM
Subject: [LargeFormat] Keeping Film Cool (was Re: A new departure)


| At 20:20 07/03/02 -0800, Brock Nanson wrote:
| >I also used to keep the film refrigerated wherever possible during a
trip.
| >I've become less anal about that too...  It takes a prolonged high
| >temperature to do damage you can see, so unless colour rendition is an
| >absolute must for product photography for instance, you won't be able to
see
| >the difference in the red sunset or the subtle change in the green of the
| >trees.
|
| It's amazing the extremes of temperature that film will tolerate - unless
| it's something like 4x5 trannie film that is......  The temperatures in
the
| hire cars I use in the US on my various trips can be so extreme that it is
| not possible to get into the car unless you want to get burned by the
seats
| and challenge your respiratory system!  Strategy is to open the door wide,
| insert ignition key from outside the car and fire it up with the AC on
| full.  These temperatures are despite having huge reflective sun shades in
| the front and rear windows.....
|
| After about five or ten minutes you can use the car - if your trannie film
| is not in a cooler bag it'll be roasted!  This probably comes into the
| realm of prolonged high temperatures :-)
|
| When backpacking (for me this means moving more than ten feet from the
car)
| then I only take out with me as many holders as I think will be needed for
| the area and leave the rest in the cooler bag together with the exposed
and
| unexposed film.
|
| Oh yes, drinking by accident the ubiquitous US travelling drink, Mountain
| dew,  at the temperature of a hot cup of English tea requires a half hour
| recovery period ;-)
|
| Cheers,
|              Clive