Is hot film faster?

Indeed, astrophotographers would cool down their plates to be able to do very long exposures. They used to make their own emulsions too, Lippman plates with a resolving power of 6000 l/mm (take that Tech Pan). The speed was something in the region of 0,01 ASA.
I once did a job in northern Quebec in February. The daytime high was -52C and my job was to shoot color transparancies of a large industrial complex. As most places like that, they are ugly with debris and junk strewn across the area. I decided to do the stuff at night to eliminate some of this.
I phoned Kodak/Rochester and asked about compensation for low temperature shooting with Ektachrome. The technical guy was a bit unconcerned." Oh, well - its gets cold here too and we never compensate". I tried to tell him that it was REALLY cold where I was. "Ok, how cold?" "-52C at noon and dropping". There was a long pause and then " Shoot at a 1/4 speed and bracket like hell!"
It somehow worked and the shoots turned out OK and the client was happy.
 
heat will affect film. I've ruined a few rolls by forgetting the unexposed film in the back seat of the car for a few hot sunny days. After shooting and processing, it was as if over-exposed. Not precisely, but similar. I believe Kodak warns against leaving film in a car over hot sunny days because of fogging. At the very least, I'd expect less than optimal images from letting film get so hot it was difficult to handle the camera.
 
It's well established that cooling certain types of emulsion reduce reciprocity failure, which can lead to more sensitive results on long exposures. This is the opposite of the effect you are intoning.


Sparrow said:
Is hot film faster?

Obviously chemicals react faster when they are hot, is film the same? Anybody know?
 
Back
Top Bottom