Cold camera photography
Cold camera photography reduces noise and reciprocity failure in astrophotography.
Cold camera photography is a technique used by astrophotographers to reduce electronic noise during long exposures with DSLRs and dedicated CMOS or CCD astro-cameras, typically using a Peltier thermo-electric cooler. For traditional film cameras, cooling reduces the Reciprocity Effect (or Reciprocity Failure), in which effective film sensitivity decreases over time and causes color shifts. The technique was popularized by renowned astrophotographer Jack B. Newton and earlier by Evered Kreimer, who used his own design for images in the Messier Album.
- First commercial cold cameras available
- early to mid 1970s
- Williams camera licensor
- Celestron International
- Guerra instruments operating years
- 1974 to about 1978
- Guerra cameras produced
- over 60
- Newton cold camera production start
- around 1992
- Dry ice duration in newton camera
- about 40 minutes at 60°F
Lore & Background
The Williams/Celestron Cold Camera, introduced in the early 1970s, solved icing by contacting film to a thick acrylic plug whose insulating property kept the front surface from frosting. However, it required difficult handling of cut film in the dark and introduced optical aberrations with fast optical systems. The Guerra Instruments Cryogenic Camera, first advertised in Sky & Telescope in 1974, eliminated the thick plug by placing film in a sealed chamber with a silica gel desiccant packet, a patented innovation. It used standard sheet film holders with dark slides, allowing pre-loading at home, and could operate with dry ice or liquid nitrogen. The camera included an off-axis flip mirror guide system, red-LED illuminated reticle, focusing eyepiece, and a focusing film holder with ground-glass screen and Foucault knife-edge focuser. Over 60 units were hand-made and sold worldwide, with the first purchased by Alfred State College in New York.
Reader's Guide
Cold camera photography for film was largely rendered obsolete by gas-hyper-sensitization of emulsion in the 1990s, which was easier and produced equal or better results without cooling. The final blow came from large-format CCD and CMOS digital imagers, which even uncooled matched the best cold-camera film results, and with electronic cooling achieved professional observatory quality with modest amateur telescopes. Despite the shift to digital, the use of internal silica-gel desiccant packets to control moisture—pioneered by the Guerra Cryogenic Camera—remains ubiquitous in modern cooled CMOS and CCD cameras. The technique's legacy is thus twofold: it enabled high-quality long-exposure astrophotography in the film era, and its moisture-control innovation persists in contemporary digital astro-imaging.
Did You Know?
- The Williams cold camera used a thick acrylic plug about 2 inches (5 cm) thick to prevent icing on the emulsion.
- Guerra Instruments operated from 1974 to about 1978, with John Guerra joining Polaroid's Optical Engineering Department in late 1976.
- The Newton cold camera could use standard 35mm roll film canisters, unlike the Williams camera which required cut pieces.
- Gas-hyper-sensitization of film in the 1990s largely made cooling film obsolete.
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