Does Film Emulsion swell in the Rain ?

[Martin Aislabie]

I'm just curious but how wet does film need to be before the emulsion swells ?

I spent a day photographing the base of waterfalls in the pouring rain.

Continuous heavy rain, very heavy spray shooting out from the base of the waterfall and a soaking mist off the falling column of water

Despite my best efforts, everything in the camera bag (camera, lenses, darkslides,,,,) all got very very wet as the day went on.

I started wondering, how wet (and for how long) does film need to be before it causes the emulsion to swell and affect the sharpness of the image.

The negatives (HP5) are fine, so swelling takes obviously longer than the 10hrs in damp/saturated conditions that I gave them

Thanks

Martin

 

[cliveh]

The swelling is also dependent on temperature, a factor which is very important with the bromoil process.

 

[Martin Aislabie]

I worked for the world's largest newsgathering organization and had pals that shot everywhere -- polar bear country, Sahara desert, swamps in Florida and Vietnam -- and never heard of such a problem. I suspect, however, you need to plan ahead and figure out how to protect your camera equipment. I'd be more worried about water getting inside a lens or a camera body and goofing up the works.

I protected the camera as best I could but everything quickly became saturated.

One of the nice things about an LF Camera is there are almost no works to goof up

Instead I had to slacken the tension screws a fraction as the wood swelled slightly with all that moisture

The lenses never misted either up when I put them somewhere warm to dry out - but getting them that wet for that long isn't something to recommend

Thanks

Martin

 

[Ian Grant]

I have had issues with EFKE 25 but to be fair it was excessive rain and my backpack got soaked, I lost 1 frame of 10x8 film and a DSLR. just 1/4 of a mile away a car was swept of the same road killing the driver. It was on an APUG Cornwall gathering as well

Other than that no and I do work in extremes at times.

Ian