Handling film in the tropics

Hello all,

I´ve settled temporarily in Costa Rica, on a coffee farm near Turrialba. It´s wonderful, and my soul always feels right in tropics - particularly during the wet season. It reminds me of Laos, or Darwin here. Only slightly cooler.

While my soul loves it, I´m not sure my film does. I´ve set up a small darkroom for processing film only. No printing. It´s pitch black after 6pm anyways, so it was not too tricky. At any rate, on loading the first few sheets into their holders, and the first few rolls onto reels, I´ve noticed a real difference. The film feels much more ´maliable´and less rigid. It´s been a nightmare to get onto reels! I feel like I´ve never done it before in my life. One roll (luckily a holga roll) got rather kinked up, and has the marks to show it. I´ve never had that happen in my life.

Does anyone have any tips for using film in conditions like these? ie - near 100% humidity? I guess I don´t now what I expect people can tell me, but you never know what wonderful ideas one can glean off of APUG. Maybe someone can ship me a giant dehumidifier of sorts.

Anyways, the dogs are chasing the young horse, so I should tend to that!

Thanks,

I would suggest a dehumidifier or air conditioner, doesn't have to be huge. Leave the film in the room for while, then sneak into room and then attempt loading film.

Welcome to paradise!

A small area air conditioner in the room in which you load your reels to process. This will help in drying too.

I keep my dogs and horses separate. Fences make for good pets. Grin.

I'm in Florida, so it's similar weather in the summer. I find Patterson reels easier to load here than stainless (yes, I used stainless for years in colder climes). I also find loading easier in the open darkroom rather than a changing bag.

I also find I get more consistent processing when I make sure all chemicals are relatively the same temperature - from presoak to final wash. As my wash water is 80F, I use my developer and fixer at that temperature. I've had to test for development times at that temperature.

Most folks who have not lived in these temperatures and humidities recommend all kinds of developer chilling schemes. I've never found any of them worthwhile. They're too inconsistent and help cause defects in the film, in my experience.
juan

It's been a long time since I had to handle film in the tropics. As I recall, it wasn't that different than anywhere else. The main problem was condensation when moving between the hot, humid outdoors and an air conditioned space. A half hour wait was usually sufficient for the condensation to go away. In some places, fungus growth can be an ugly problem, but most modern films resist it very well. If you have to process at temperatures above 30C, you may need to add sodium sulfate to the developer and adjust the times. Selecting a developer with a fairly long developing time can keep the times reasonable at higher temperatures, also.
An annoying and potentially destructive problem is sweaty, sticky fingers when loading the tank. You need to be careful about getting to much sweat in the wrong places on the film. If it becomes an issue, try thin white cotton or nylon gloves.

Marco Buonocore said:

Hello all,


Does anyone have any tips for using film in conditions like these? ie - near 100% humidity? I guess I don´t now what I expect people can tell me, but you never know what wonderful ideas one can glean off of APUG. Maybe someone can ship me a giant dehumidifier of sorts.

Anyways, the dogs are chasing the young horse, so I should tend to that!

Thanks,

Click to expand...

I lived for six years in Borneo where it was 95 F. (34 C) daytime temp and nearly 100% humidity year-round. Not only did my film not love that climate, but my soul didn't either, though I did love the place and the people.

The film-loading problem is worse with 35 than with 120, I discovered, since the rolls are so much longer and the grooves of the reels narrower. A small window unit in my darkroom/study was necessary, not only for film processing, but for keeping my professional library from mildewing. The cockroaches still ate the skin off my hardcover books anyway, (the paste in the board, I think) air conditioning or not. When taking cameras and film into or out of the air-conditioning, it is necessary to allow them to acclimate for some minutes to prevent the fogging of the lenses and viewfinders. The air conditioning also kept the lenses from getting fungus, but there is another way to do that without air conditioning. Get a large biscuit tin or other tin with a tight-fitting lid or even a wooden box that can be shut tightly, put a low-wattage (15-25W) bulb inside and keep your cameras and lenses in there. The bulb will dry the air enough to prevent fungus.

A bigger problem than film loading or condensation, however, was developing the film. My ambient water temp was about 85F (28-29C), and I got grain like basketballs. So an old article on divided development rescued me from that predicament. Take a home-mixed developer like D-76, and separate the borax out of the mix. In bath A just have the Metol, Hydroquin, and Sulfite. Soak the film for about 3 minutes (you can adjust as necessary) at whatever your ambient temp is (it doesn't matter); then without rinsing or stop bath, move the film to bath B (or pour out Bath A and pour in Bath B) which is just the alkaline activator (borax or metaborate). Give it 3 minutes or so there too.

You should get very presentable results, and by dividing the developer, you will effectively eliminate time/temp considerations. The only catch is to give it enough time, and 3 minutes should be more than sufficient. Same goes for paper developer, except that there, about 30 seconds in Bath A and roughly 45 seconds in Bath B will develop everything fully. Sodium carbonate will be your activator for paper.

Good luck.

Larry

I have lived for 23 years in a tropical rain forest in Puerto Rico. I have learned by sad experience that the only way to be a film photographer in tropical conditions is to keep everything -film, cameras, lenses, enlarger... everything- cool and dry. Cool and dry means below 80F and 50% RH. I accomplish the former in my darkroom (where I also store my equipment) with an air conditioner and the latter with a dehumidifier. Neither alone will accomplish both.
If you don't do this, your film, your prints, and your lenses will soon be devoured by fungus. I've tried dessicants, and they help with the humidity but not the heat.
Nothing else will work.

If you use any of the soft emulsion East European sheets films, save those interleaving sheets to use with the exposed film and process film soon after shooting. I haven't had this problem myself, but Robert Teague tells me that a box of Efke sheet film turned into a useless brick during one rainy season in Hawai'i. Normally the climate is pretty reasonable there and the trade winds keep the humidity fairly moderate, but in recent years there have been a few very rainy spells lasting weeks and causing flooding.