How cold can film get before cracking?

[film_guy]

Anyone know how cold can 35mm B&W and color film get before getting too brittle and cracking? Any tips on shooting film in really cold and windy environments?

 

[Mick Fagan]

I shared a house with a good friend who wintered in Antarctica for a year. It was actually 22 months as the supply ship could't get there due to the severe storms that year.

The Australian base he was at, was not the type the Americans have, it was a reasonably rough affair. I remember receiving a message that the ice was getting through the cracks and freezing most of the building except for one room during one very bad blizzard.

He took two fully manual cameras, Nikon FM2 with three lenses. His film stock was FP4+ and he had more problems with the lenses freezing up than he had with the camera. They didn't really freeze up, but they became very hard to turn the focusing mechanism.

Basically down to about -30C there wasn't any problem, below that the 105 Nikkor started to be a bit hard to move.

The film worked perfectly, the coldest I believe that he shot at, was around -45C plus there was a wind chill factor of whatever degrees.

I developed about 90% of his film upon his return, not one roll of film was damaged. He had to get his film developed upon his return as he dropped his developing tank and cracked it in half. They stuck it together, but he couldn't get the screw top to go on properly.

I myself have used HP5+ down to -26C with no adverse problems, there was a wind chill factor as it was howling on the mountain top, don't know really how cold it was, except to say the I had difficulty changing film with gloves on. Without gloves my fingers started to stick to the metal of the camera which was a Nikon F3HP.

Mick.

 

[Ole]

The only problem I've heard of is one case of the automatic rewind being too "rough" in -45C. But that hardly matters since the batteries will die halfway though, anyway!

I've shot a Pentax ME in -40 (C or F, same temperature) and I can only say it was worse on me than on the film.

 

[bob01721]

Does wind chill factor apply to cameras or film? I thought it was a "feels like" factor that applied to perceived cold due to wind.

 

[Ole]

Wind chill factor doesn't apply to dry things. That's why it's measured with a "wet bulb" thermometer.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Interesting, I didn't know about the wet bulb thermometer, learn something new every day.

Mick.

 

[Alex Bishop-Thorpe]

The FM2 is specified to work up to -50c, but I think you'd have trouble with your camera before you had trouble with your film.

 

[jim appleyard]

I do a lot of skiing/snowshoeing in the Adirondacks of New York state and it the coldest I was ever out was -27F (I don't know off the top of my head what that means in C). The film was fine, no damage, and has been on every trip in winter, going on 30 years.

However, after I expose a roll of bulk-loaded b/w, I don't rewind all the way to make it easier to load in the SS reel. I fold olver the leader so I know it's been exposed. Even when it's moderately cold out, the leader will crack and break off due to the cold! My film has always run thru the camera just fine, but the leader breaks off? Go figure!?

Do what the old Damart underwear ads used to say," Laugh at the cold!"

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

With a motor drive there can be issues of static discharge ruining the occasional frame in very dry cold conditions, but it probably isn't something to worry about.

 

[L Gebhardt]

Wind chill factor doesn't apply to dry things. That's why it's measured with a "wet bulb" thermometer.

It applies to things that are warmer than their surroundings. Your camera will cool off much faster with a strong wind than if it was a calm day. This is because the moving air removes the layer of slightly warmed air that forms around warmer objects.

I thought wind chill was just a calculated value. Isn't a wet bulb used to measure relative humidity?

 

[jim appleyard]

Yes, a wet bulb is used to measure RH. In the weather course in college, wind-chill was determined by measuring temp and wind speed and then looking it up on a chart.

I don't know if a wet-bulb could be used for determining wind chill or not.

 

[KenM]

The wind chill index is indeed a calculated value, based on the air temperature in Celsius and the current wind speed in km/h at 10m above the ground.

 

[Ole]

You're correct, of course. Wind chill is a calculated value - and the calculations are full of "except", "unless" and "does not take into account".

The calculation uses the wind speed at 33ft (10m) to estimate the wind speed at 5ft (1.5m). For some reason that's the only place I've seen wind speeds in km/hr - it's usually given in m/s, sometimes in knots!

Anyway wind will only make your camera reach ambient temperature faster, not chill it below that. But IMO a camera at -40 is cold enough!

 

[ricksplace]

In my experience, the batteries go flat pretty fast at -40C, so I leave my Pentax MEsupers at home. I use a mechanical camera (Pentax sp1000 and K1000). I use fp4 and have never had a problem with film cracking, however, I have had problems with static electricity causing lightning like streaks on the film. When the temperature is that low, the humidity is usually pretty low too which contributes to the static problem.

 

[Ole]

Oddly enough the only time I've ever got static discharge streaks on my film was in a somewhat warmer climate - at least nominally. But Egypt can be pretty dry, even in February...

 

[Photo Engineer]

Film has worked in the cold, dark vacuum of outer space. It was used in all of the early manned and unmanned flights with no problem whatsoever, in spite of dire predictions by some experts.

PE

 

[Jim Jones]

I used Leica M2, Nikon F, and Nikkormats in Greenland at -50C with occasional film cracking, sprocket hole stripping, and static electricity. Very careful film advance and rewind prevented almost all problems.

 

[Fotohuis]

Even the Fomapan T200 surived Prague at -22 degrees C last year. The biggest problem is the cold for yourself and the gloves you have to wear because you will freeze on the camera.
In this case a Leica M7 rangefinder and a slowly transport of the 35mm film. Even this quartz battery controlled camera still worked at this temperature. NOT a lot of tourists this time on the stairs and the little few of them had ALL problems with their digital cameras. .
Here some example shots on T200, developed in Fomadon R09. A nice Czech Combo
Dead Link Removed


Best regards,

Robert

 

[DougGrosjean]

It applies to things that are warmer than their surroundings. ... This is because the moving air removes the layer of slightly warmed air that forms around warmer objects.

Actually, it also applies to things that are colder than their surroundings. A block of ice will melt faster on a 60F day with a fan blowing on it, than it will if you just leave it alone.

The higher the speed of the heating or cooling air (or liquid), the greater the heat transfer - in either direction.

 

[Michal Kolosowski]

HI!

Well, actually I had some problems with Foma 100 in temperatures below -30 Celsius degrees. It used to crack while loading into the camera. On the other hand it was not to difficult to form a new film tip just with my bare hands.

Regards,
Michal.

 

[PhotoJim]

I've shot into the -30s C without problems. Manual wind and rewind are best. Wind and rewind slowly, particularly if it's dry, to avoid static marks.

It is true that wind chill makes inanimate objects cool off faster, but it's less important. -10 with a -40 wind chill is no big deal. Your car will start fine. To a human it is a very big deal, though. You will get frostbite quickly, whereas at -10 and calm winds you wouldn't, unless you wear appropriate clothing to shield you from the wind. As for film and cameras, they will cool to -10 and all will be well.

I always chuckle to myself when I hear people talk about the horrible wind chill and about how they had to plug their cars in (our cars have block heaters to keep the oil warm on very cold nights; it's below -20 C much of the winter here). However, wind chill is irrelevant. The only people it affects are those who shut off their cars for relatively short periods of time. (They cool off faster.)

 

[film_guy]

What's static marks look like on film? Are they like streaks or discoloration?

 

[Jim Jones]

They vary. Sometimes they are a series of dots or splotches. Sometimes they look like fuzzballs.

 

[PhotoJim]

The ones I've gotten look like ... static marks. They look like little negative lightning bolts, right at the edge of the film, occasionally extending into the image area.

 

[ricksplace]

The ones I've gotten look like ... static marks. They look like little negative lightning bolts, right at the edge of the film, occasionally extending into the image area.

That's the kind I have seen.