This section is from the book "Airplane Photography", by Herbert E. Ives. Also available from Amazon: Airplane photography.
It has been found by Abney and Dewar that very low temperatures materially decrease the speed of photographic emulsions. This decrease may amount to as much as 50 per cent, in the temperature range from 30 degrees Centigrade above zero to 30 degrees below zero, which is the range over which aerial photographic operations will have to be carried on in war-time. This effect has not been at all fully studied, and it is not known whether it is general or only found in certain kinds of plates. The remedy indicated is to provide means for heating the plates or films when low temperatures are encountered. This is fairly easy in film cameras, or in plate cameras like the deRam, where the entire load of plates is carried in the camera body. Plates carried in magazines present a more difficult problem. The heating coil incorporated in the German cameras is perhaps partly for this purpose.
 
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