[LargeFormat] Re: Shooting LF in below freezing conditions

[Brock Nanson]

I've never seen any sort of reciprocity change with temperature either.  
I've never worried about it on either end of the temperature scale.

What I have found is that film can be brittle when cold.  Not a big deal 
with LF, but 35mm can have issues.  Fast winders are the big problem, but 
if you let the batteries drop in temperature to match the film, speed 
becomes less of an issue ;-)

Static electricity can also be problematic.  The colder it is, the less 
moisture there is in the air, even though you're wading through several 
feet of moisture in a frozen state!  I've never had to use a changing bag 
in the extreme cold, but mine is nylon so I'd imagine it could develop a 
charge.  Any experience with that Dave or Tim?

Doing a dry run in a commercial freezer is probably a good idea.  
Depending on how a shutter is lubricated, I could see how viscosity 
changes could affect shutter speed.  The commercial freezer probably isn't 
cold enough to fully simulate the trip, but should let you see where 
problems *might* crop up.

Brock

On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, Tim Atherton wrote:

> 
> > In fact, astrophotographers have long used cold to reduce reciprocity
> > failure. I've seen dry ice cameras for exactly that purpose. No, I would
> > not know how much difference it would make with modern films. The last
> > time I looked into this was about 20 years ago.
> 
> And a hell of a lot colder than -20c (or even the -40c I've shot at). I've
> never noticed any difference with the cold that I can tell.
> 
> tim
> 
> 
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-- 
Brock Nanson
Kamloops BC Canada