travelling in heat with film?

[h2oman]

Thanks for the input everyone. I should have specified that this will be B&W film. I've decided that I will try to take as much film with me on the river as I can, where I should be able to keep it from getting too hot. That will probably be 26 sheets loaded in 13 holders. I may throw another holder or two in the car, inside a down bag, shoot something with it and see how it looks when I develop it. This trip is more about seeing friends and family than photography, so I don't want to go to some of the lengths suggested above, although they may prove useful in the future.

The river trip is a "private," and we are going spartan, by river trip standards. I'll be paddling the smallest craft and someone else will be hauling someof my gear, so I have to be careful about loading them up with too much stuff! I'll be paying someone to shuttle my car and I suspect they'll park it in the sun. I don't think there will be any ohter choice.

I should have been clearer in asking if anyone had tried something simpler than ice - sorry!

[Kirk Keyes]

2. bury the film 18" underground (only half joking!)

I understand that Leni Riefenstahl did this with her 1960s Agfachrome when she was photographing the Nuba in Sudan.

I've been to the Colorado Plateau in for two weeks at a time during May/June and September/October many times, and I've never had film that appeared to be heat damaged. I left it in the back of a Jeep Grand Cherokee in the original Fujichrome boxes and simply put a light colored sheet over the top of the box.

I think it will be fine. Especially B&W film.

[Andrew O'Neill]

You don't need to be too anal about film storage. I kept 8x10 film as well as infra-red film in a soft-sided cooler whilst photographing in Southern Saskatchewan a couple of summers ago. Temps hit 40C and was dryer than a nun's "you know what" . Just keep out of the sun, and Bob's yer uncle.

[rguinter]

I'm headed out next week for a road trip. I begin with a 4 day river trip on which I'll take my camera, but I want to leave some loaded film holders in my car, which will most likely be parked in the sun of western Colorado all four days. I was thinking that if I put the film holders in a small cooler (without ice) and wrapped it in a down sleeping bag that might keep it from getting too hot during the days. Anyone with thoughts and/or experience?

Thanks,
Gregg Waterman

Forget everything everyone else said in all the other posts.

Buy yourself a Yeti cooler.

http://www.yeticoolers.com/

Yes they cost a bundle.

Buy one big enough to fit all the film you intend to carry and a couple of deep frozen ice packs.

Won't matter a hoot whether the car hits 130F in 15-minutes or an hour with the windows cracked. The Yeti will keep your film cool the whole time.

Bob G.

[Frank Petronio]

travelling in heat with film?

Just noticed your title and my sophomoric sense of humor is trying to imagine a photographer in heat. With a film.

[brianam]

Bob, those coolers look awesome... but at that price I would expect them to have hidden refrigeration unit that draws power magically out of the air!

I use one of these for storing unexposed rolls or a 4x5 sheet film box inside my normal camping cooler: http://www.pelican.com/cases_detail.php?Case=1150
-brian

PS -- my question earlier in this thread had to do with exposed infrared film still inside the camera, or after unloading. (I've always been reluctant to put exposed film back into the cooler box. but maybe it doesn't matter?)

[Brian C. Miller]

OK, I just developed some film that I had been keeping in my Jeep for a year. Agfa Agfapan 100, expired in 2008, and shot a couple of days ago, developed in Ilford Ilfosol-3 1:14 for 7min.

No fog. The film is absolutely fine.

I haven't put any of the current crop of IR films in a hot environment. I think that the only times that my IR film was fogged was because of a development error.

[BetterSense]

I have a 35mm camera in my truck's glove box. In Texas heat, it should prove to be a good test when I get around to developing it a year or so from now.