Keeping camera and film cool in the car

Film, in its own airtight plastic box, goes in the cooler. With the beer and/or wine.
Cold beer and/or wine = cool film!
New film, which I usually collect on bike/train in the Big Smoke, gets stuffed into a small fold-away cool-bag for the trip home, Camelbak-class.

Camera travels 'as-is' in the car: no special protection. I take the cameras with me whenever I've stopped and the car is not in my line of sight.

Methinks that up north where you Americans are, it is very blazing hot and stuffy at this time. Downunder is getting a blast of cool air and rain. Nice for rainforests...

Put the cooler with the camera and the film in the trunk not the front. The trunk doesn't heat up very much compared to the front of the car. You can minimize that heating by opening the windows in the front some to let heat out. If you want to use a cooling pack in the cooler, you can keep it from chilling as much by putting a layer of towels over the cool packs below the camera gear. There will still be a cooling effect. Play around with it. I've gone on many vacations with the camera and film in the trunk. No problems.

The camera isn't as available this way as if you have it up front with you while driving, but it'll be ready to go and nobody knows it's there.

If you buy indicator silica gel, it is reusable; you just wave it or bake in regular oven to drive out the accumulated moisture, when dry, it changes color - when wet again, it changes color, to so indicate.

I personally and from long experience shooting in hot humid environs (e.g., Shikoku) think that putting anything cold or cool in a cooler w/ film or camera is a bad idea unless it is in its' own double bagged ziplock with silica in the outer bag ; condensation is a killer!

I have a dark-colored car and the interior gets very hot on a sunny day. However, if I put equipment in a picnic cooler and place it deep in the trunk under the back window deck, the cooler interior never gets hot enough to damage equipment and film. Also, there is a very significant temperature gradient between the floor of the car and the "upper elevations": the floor under a seat is a much better make-shift storage spot than the glove-box. I have also wrapped equipment in aluminized "space blankets" to reflect heat in situations when it is out in the sun.

It seems counter-intuitive, but I can attest that simply placing items on the car floor under a couple blankets will keep items cool for quite a few hours, assuming the car interior is cool to begin with.

tac said:

It seems counter-intuitive, but I can attest that simply placing items on the car floor under a couple blankets will keep items cool for quite a few hours, assuming the car interior is cool to begin with.

Click to expand...

As long as it is not above the catalytic converter nor the muffler.

Steve