temperature effects on leaf shutter speeds

In talking to one of by Hasselblad shooting friends today, the

subject of extreme weather conditions came up and he mentioned

a 'blad rumour that increased lubricant viscosity in very cold

weather causes enough drag that shutters run around a stop slow.

 

Winterizing cameras by removing lubricants is a common enough

practice I can put some credence in this, though it ought to mostly

be an issue at faster shutter speeds. Even in blinding sunlight I

rarely get over 1/30 and seldom shoot below -5 degrees C, so I'm not

especially worried about this. Still, out of curiosity, has anyone

actually had this come up problem with?

Todd, FWIW a college prof from years passed recommended winterizing shutters by cleaning the old lube off and then using K-Y as a cold weather lube...........Hmmmmmmm?

you're sure he was talking about shutters....?

from what I recall on winterizing Leicas (and I've never bother doen to -40c) is that on'ce you've wintersized them, they aren't much good above freezing.

I regularly use my LF camera and lenses in temperatures approaching -20 F and have not experienced any problems with shutter speeds being noticably off. I do fire the shutter 3 or 4 times before exposing the film just to make sure that nothing is sticking.

 

Best way to know for your particluar lens collection is to do some test exposures.

 

Keep warm!

I had a job where I had to simulate the Utah desert at dawn by shooting on a beach on a Beach on Long Island NY in the dead of winter. It was about -10 F, and very damp and we kept both my UTE (Native American) model and my Hasselblads warm as possible with the heater of my SAAB and copious amounts of Remy Martin (for the UTE). Intense Fogging from the dampness limited the temp changes the 3 Hasselblads would tolerate. My non winterized 150mm Sonnar ran about 1.25 stops slow and the 250mm about -1.5. I used polaroid color kept warm and close to my body to calculate the loss, which was audible at the relativly slow speeds the low light dictated. These were lenses that were calibrated and ones I knew very well. I can assure you that the larger (shutter) Hasselblad 500 lenses do slow down in cold, damp conditions. The Ektachromes were perfect and The book jacket that was being shot turned out very well, but this was one arduios job that if I was to do it again, I would insist on flying to Utah, which in this instance the publisher did not have time for.

- about leaf shutter use in cold weather : I've use a Rollei TLR, model T (simplified and somewhat cheaper built than a 3.5F) with a Synchro-Compur XV 00,

down to -5 to -10 deg.C in winter (23 to 14F) without much trouble,

 

- about "winterizing" a Hasselblad series 500, I have in mind an article by a Scandinavian journalist equiped with a Hasselblad in North-Eastern Greenland. I assume that the paper was published in the Hasselblad House Magazine. The camera had been "winterized" at the factory with proper lubricants. The

main concern was actually rollfilm, becoming brittle in arctic conditions, i.e. much colder than -10C (14F).

(NB - cross posting this to the cold wooden camera thread too...)

 

Well, as the sun was just starting to lighten the horizon at 9.30 this am it was looking nice so I headed out.

 

Temperature was -37c (-44c for me with the windchill...).

 

After an hour my two copal #1 shutters still seemed to doing okay, though one was sounding a little slower - I doubt neither has been serviced since they were bought.

 

So, shutters okay in the cold.

 

As for wooden cameras - The Deardorff 8x10 also did perfectly well. Mind you, it does have new bellows from Camera Bellows, so I'm not sure how the old ones would have done, encased as they were in duct tape... But as promised by Camera Bellows, their synthetic ones perform at well below zero temps. Just slightly stiffer that's all. The rest of the Dorff did fine.

 

Oh - one sheet of film shattered. This was after about 45 minutes out. Must have bowed when the darkslide came out and kerrrching - when it went back in no more film. Think shattered windshield! Little bits everywhere... Guess the film doesn't like the cold any better than I do.

 

After close to an hour though it was time to pack it in.... time for a latte.

 

tim