Apropos of something related, sort of, to all this, as a young reporter-photographer in eastern Canada in the 1960s I often used a Rolleiflex Automat from the newspaper's photo gear locker, one that had been serviced for the Canadian winter cold.
In 1966 I was sent on assignment to Goose Bay, Labrador, the exact reason for which I have now forgotten, and took this venerable beast with me. On my firsst morning there I dressed up like an eskimo, took the camera and went out on the tarmac to shoot a few images of aircraft landing and taking off - I recall at least a dozen lovely old Douglas DC-2s and DC-3s as well as other vintage beauties from a time when flying was fun if not exactly comfortable, stood by the runway, clicked off my first shot - and the Rollei shutter froze open.
Devastated (at the time I was a newsroom 'veteran' of all of 18 years old) I took myself and the camera back indoors and related my plight to a Canadian Forces photographer, an old veteran of the game, who took the Rollei, put it in a plastic bag and placed it in the mess refrigerator - his sensible theory being it would eventually warm up in the +2C-+3C degree fridge temperature and the shutter would finish its cycle and close, which it did, about an hour later. Of course I lost that image, but, well!
The outdoor temperature at the time was -27F. I'm not sure what that works out to it Celsius/Centigrade degrees, but either way it was damn cold.
