Topic: Heat vs film

[Indofunk]

Just received some film in the mail here in Santa Barbara via evilbay (which solved my "where to buy film in Santa Barbara" dilemma), and it being SoCal and the mailbox being outdoors, the film was noticeably hot to the touch. That made me realize that any film that has traveled through the mail, especially in the summer, has likely been exposed to some rather hot temperatures. I've never really had a problem with relatively recent (ie, non-expired) film through the mail, nor do I expect to, but what if a mail truck were to break down in the desert somewhere and sit there for a day or so and in the process nicely cook whatever film is in the back. Reason for concern? Or simply one of the thousands of things that it's just not worth worrying about? I go with the latter.

[Francois]

I wouldn't worry too much about this. I've once been told that I had some heat damaged film but I think now that it was just the lab guy trying to cover his tracks and using bad chemistry.

The fuji I had gave me some very purple tones... the type the Lomo fanboys would now pay a lot for.

[Kayos]

I've left loaded cameras in cars and vans on very hot days and the film has been fine

I think it's a lot tougher than a lot of people believe, I wouldn't risk important films with less than perfect handling but I'm sure a lot of "faults" are incorrectly blamed on handling and storage

[LT]

I think time is the greatest threat to silver emulsions rather than heat. The one time we can slow this down is in a fridge, but I don't think being in hot places is too much of a threat other than if it melts. All it will do is shorten its life a bit, if anything I guess.

[LEAFotography]

I've been away from here for ages due to some major changes, but I did a test a couple of years ago: left a boxed C41 film on my dashboard in my car, 5 days in a row, a few hours of at least 38C inside the car, and the film was fine...never tried this with slide film or b/w...

[Francois]

I don't think that's enough to be a problem. They did shoot film in the Sahara since photography was invented you know!
If the guys from Nat Geo have traveled the world with slide film in their bag and never had any problems, I don't see why we should have any.

The worse for just about anything is a mix of high temperatures and high humidity. After a long time, this really degrades anything.

[Terry]

I once was told by a lab that all the sparkles in a roll of motion picture film were caused by heat.  Dirty developer, more likely.

[Bryan]

I think you're right Terry, I've seen this debated on other forums, it's a problem with the developer when they're making copies.  I've also heard this debate about heat and they always seem to conclude that for short durations the heat has little effect on film.  Long term storage being exposed to heat can do some serious damage.