Frozen film and Comic Radiation

[Jerry Cunningham]

Like many, I am worried about the availabilty of favorite sheet films. Thus I am starting to hoard. I use a lot of Tmax 400 film and the consensus seem to be that frozen film in this class has a longevity of 10 to 15 years. The limiting factor appears to be comic radiation. Lead sheets and foils are readily available. Also lead bird shot used by hunters comes in 25 lb bags and is fairly cheap. Does anyone have a clue as to how much shielding would be necessary to overcome the radiation/film fog problem.
Avalability is not the only problem. I think we will see a large increase in sheet film costs. So hoarding might make sense from a financial standpoint. Any thoughts on these situations?
Thanking everyone in advance.
Jerry Cunningham

[wfwhitaker]

Keep the comics out of your house and you should be fine. And of course, you should always handle all film with a straight face.

[Gem Singer]

This is a "comic" suggestion: find a refrigerator that has thick lead walls and use it to store the stuff. However, he biggest problem with hoarding these classic films is that as newer and better films are introduced, you are going to be stuck with a large quantity of the old fashioned outdated stuff that is now suffering from "comic" radiation.

[Sal Santamaura]

Lead won't accomplish want you want. To avoid fogging you'd need to do what Kodak does with T-Max 3200, namely store it in an abandoned salt mine deep under the surface. Only significant earth shielding like that will attenuate cosmic radiation enough for long-term storage of a 400-speed film. Of course, freezing is necessary too.

[Gary J. McCutcheon]

This is all very comical.

[John Flavell]

A portrait photographer is taking pictures of a child and the child's mother and grandmother are watching.

Mother: "Isn't he cute? He has my eyes"

Grandmother: "He has my nose"

Photographer: "And, he has my sympathy"



Once all this film is frozen, how long does it take to thaw it out to use?

[Bruce Watson]

Y'all cut the guy some slack. Like none of us has ever made a spelling mistake...

Cosmic radiation consists of just about everything, from microwave up, and particles from photons to heavy particles like neutrons and protons. We don't have to worry much about the low frequency stuff, or the charged particles. The atmosphere shields us from most of it, and the magnetosphere deflects the charged particles.

What's left is the high energy stuff, and some sub-atomic particles. That is, x-rays, gamma rays, and higher, and particles like neutrinos and muons.

The lead will stop most x-rays and some gamma radiation, but not all. And it won't faze the particles. You even get some of the particles passing entirely through the earth - nothing much is going to stop them, but since they don't interact with much it doesn't really matter.

All you can do is to keep adding shielding, and at some stage call it enough. If you are really serious about it, you can make your own refrigerator like a meat locker. Build it underground out of lots of poured concrete (including the roof), line it with a couple of inches of lead, and let it go.

I believe that Michael Smith and Paula Chamblee did something similar to this. They have the end of Kodak's final run of Super XX film, and the last run of AZO grade 3 paper stored in their "meat locker." They might talk to you about it, and they might not.

[Ralph Barker]

I bet you feel like you lost your "s" on this question, Jerry. ;-)

On one hand, what little info I've read on the subject supports your 10-15 year range and Sal's comment that lead or other common "surface" shielding doesn't make much difference. (With sadness, I removed the tin-foil hat I had been wearing for years. ;-) )

On the other hand, I've talked to people who have used 30-year old frozen film that shows little or no fogging affect from cosmic radiation. So, you might as well freeze away, and use it on a FIFO basis, replacing the old stuff with new stuff as it comes along. Today's new stuff will be old stuff in 15 years, anyway.

Then, on the third hand, if one factors in the cost of keeping a large store of film frozen for 20 years, I'm not sure about the economics.

[Frank Petronio]

What about radioactivity from the Radon gas in the basement where your freezer is?

Why not just buy some surplus emulsion coating equipment from Kodak if you are so worried? You'll still be able to get quality coated paper bases (fine art photo inkjet papers) and all you have left to do is coat them yourself, fresh and unradiated.

Then again I have some 5x7 window panes I could sell you...

[Sal Santamaura]

Just a note about Azo: it's so slow, cosmic radiation wouldn't be a storage issue for the lifetime of anyone posting here, no matter how young they are today. High speed emulsions are the susceptible ones.

Ralph, if your hairline looks anything like mine does these days, keep wearing that tin-foil hat. It provides excellent protection against the biggest radiation threat -- UV.

[Jeffrey Scott]

I'd be more concerned about tragic radiation! Stock away, for the most part you may have to print through the base fog. Has anybody used antifog tablets with film?

[Michael S. Briggs]

At ground level, the bulk of the cosmic rays are muons. Muons are highly penetrating particles that are difficult to absorb with shielding, requiring tens of meters of material. Assuming that you don't happen to have a mine to store your film in, locating the freezer at lower altitudes will help because of the increased air mass.





Terrestial radiation from Potassium-40, Uranium and Thorium and their daughters consists of many types: alpha particles, x-rays, gamma-rays and radon gas. Keeping the freezer airtight will keep reduce the radiation from decays of radon atoms. The metal walls of the freezer will block the alphas. A few mm of lead will block the x-rays and most of the gammas.





Lead is one of the best shielding materials for x-rays and gamma-rays because of its high atomic number. However, it can be just as effective and cheaper to use a larger mass of some cheaper material such as steel, dirt, water, etc.





The amount of cosmic radiation depends on lattitude and altitude -- low latitudes and altitudes having less cosmic radiation. The amount of terrestial radiation depends on geography and the materials used to build a building. There are some maps at http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/radon/DDS-9.html (http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/radon/DDS-9.html).





My opinion is not to bother with this. Some types of B+W film will be available for many years into the future. If there is a particular variety that you really like, then stockpile it if the manufacturer announces the end of its production. Of course, if you want a lot of film you might have to buy fast. One thing to say in Kodak's favor is that Kodak tends to announce the end of production of a film well in advance.

[Gary Gibson]

As I understand it Michael Smith is most concerned to protect his Azo and Super XX from "Cosmic Life Energy" I think using some special mesh constrcution around his 200 sq ft freezer/bunker.


http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/topic/497656.html (http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/topic/497656.html)

He has been somewhat coy about explaining this further, but a google search brings up the work of Wilhelm Reich


http://energy-healing.7gen.com/webshop/item-full.jsp?ASIN=0962185582 (http://energy-healing.7gen.com/webshop/item-full.jsp?ASIN=0962185582)


http://www.orgonelab.org/energyinspace.htm (http://www.orgonelab.org/energyinspace.htm)

and the Maharishi Yogi (much beloved of John Lennon)


http://home.swipnet.se/sonoloco10/mahesh/mahesh.html (http://home.swipnet.se/sonoloco10/mahesh/mahesh.html)

So probably a buried freezer with at least an 8" covering of solid garlic combined with regular cleansing of your auras may be the best protection.

[Frank Petronio]

As for the salt mines near Rochester, about ten years a huge area of the country side simply collapsed near Geneseo - six to ten feet - taking out major roads and bridges. Salt mines were said to be the culprit, along with a major earthquake fault running through Upstate New York. Send your film to the MIDDLE of the continent.

[John Cook]

Kodak has several online tidbits about film storage. Some pertain to motion picture film, which should also be useful for sheet film.

Their general advice seems to be that low speed conventional emulsion (not T-Max nor Delta) films store best. But even with these (frozen) you can't count on more than five years. After that, you need to run tests before using the film to see to what extent the increased fog will be a problem.

Here is just one of these documents. A web search will find many more.


http://www.kodak.com/cluster/global/en/consumer/products/techInfo/e30/e30Contents.shtml (http://www.kodak.com/cluster/global/en/consumer/products/techInfo/e30/e30Contents.shtml)

[Graeme Hird]

Store your film some place close to where they shoot those terrible US sitcoms. Their film never seems to be fogged and there is certainly very little comedy coming out of the studios. Perhaps they've discovered a comic radiation shield (a "black comedy" hole?) that they're keeping secret from the rest of us.

(Oh, and don't expose your film to this thread - we're ALL comics here .....)

More seriously, the cosmic radiation that reaches the Earth's surface won't affect the emulsion of your film.

[Jerry Cunningham]

I will never live this typing error down. I am wearing rags and covering my head with ashes.
Thanks for all the humorous responses.
Jerry Cunningham