London Airport

[Brian K]

diaper rash ointment will set the scanners off every time.

John, you still wear that stuff?

Why would they lose? They have already got your money, and I doubt that your refusing to board the plane would qualify as a valid reason for a refund. Besides, the security guy is neither the CEO nor the marketing manager of the airline, so I don't think he'd care too much about customer satisfaction or the company losing a customer. He gets his salary regardless of whether you are boarding or not.
I don't know why it worked for you in Tahiti on that specific occasion, but I really doubt it would work in London.

Vlad, bottom line is if I don't get on that plane the airline is not guaranteed getting paid for my seat. And just how much grief is the local security in Tahiti going to give the ONLY first class passenger? On both the flight from LA and to Auckland I was the only person in first, 5 empty seats and me. Air tahiti Nui has only 6 total flights a day through out the world and 3 departing from tahiti. No I don't think the security guy is going to risk a big stink with the airline given that I'm there at 5 am, no one else is on line and I have a reasonable request and face a significant loss.

As for London, of course this strategy wouldn't work. They'd x-ray my film no matter what. So the bottom line there is that I don't go to the UK and they lose the money that I would have spent there. There are a great many other places where I can go and not risk my livelihood.

[IanG]

As for London, of course this strategy wouldn't work. They'd x-ray my film no matter what. So the bottom line there is that I don't go to the UK and they lose the money that I would have spent there. There are a great many other places where I can go and not risk my livelihood.

Unlike some other countries the BAA airports in the UK take security and film safety very seriously. The only reason they don't offer hand checks of film is they are very confident that their machines don't damage films.

I travel in and out of London & Manchester airports frequently, always with film and have complete confidence in their systems.

Ian

[David A. Goldfarb]

They sell film in London, so I don't bring too much, and I buy more there, reducing X-ray exposure. If I were really concerned, I'd process it there too, but I haven't had a problem with X-ray exposure.

[Brian K]

Unlike some other countries the BAA airports in the UK take security and film safety very seriously. The only reason they don't offer hand checks of film is they are very confident that their machines don't damage films.

I travel in and out of London & Manchester airports frequently, always with film and have complete confidence in their systems.

Ian

The acceptability of risk is dependent on what you are risking. For me a photographic trip is a business trip and is solely about returning with useable photographs, to achieve this goal I spend up to 2 months shooting on a trip, a month of preparation and research and $10k-20k in out of pocket expenses. Even if you don't consider the possible monetary value of the exposed film, and my living is derived from the sale of prints produced from that film, I risk a great deal when I hand my film over to someone who's going to x-ray it. While the odds may be greatly in my favor that there will be no discernible damage, the loss to me if there was damage is considerable so I am very cautious.

They sell film in London, so I don't bring too much, and I buy more there, reducing X-ray exposure. If I were really concerned, I'd process it there too, but I haven't had a problem with X-ray exposure.

Having come from the professional end of photography, where failure to produce useable images can make the photographer liable for possibly bankrupting costs, I have learned to take a very cautious approach. I don't shoot film that I haven't previously tested, period. I buy my film in large quantities and immediately shoot and process test rolls. I have come across product defects on more than one occasion on films made by major manufacturers. You never know how a batch of film was stored, how it was shipped and in the act of shipping it may have been x-rayed and maybe with an x-ray utilizing a different, and worse standard than the airport x-rays.

[Vlad Soare]

How about sheet film? If you ask for hand checking, won't they want to open the boxes and see what's inside?

[David A. Goldfarb]

How about sheet film? If you ask for hand checking, won't they want to open the boxes and see what's inside?

This is the main reason I try to avoid hand checks. Exposed film boxes get tape on four sides of the box and two rubber bands to give me more time to explain in case an inspector starts to open the box.

[BrianShaw]

ditto #56!

In the US... I've had sealed boxes passed through hand check with just the trace detection (when they rub the swab over the box and check for trace amounts of bad stuff) done to the outside... but never seen willingness to do the same with unsealed boxes.

My experience in London (not very recent) is such that I wouldn't even ask for anything other than the regular xray treatment.

[Aahx]

Here is an interesting Technical Bulletin from the Kodak global site concerning baggage x-ray's.

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/servi.../tib5201.shtml

And from the TSA site:

http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtrav...rial_1035.shtm

[IanG]

Those links to are to information that is 5 years out of date.

I had an extremely interesting talk tonight/last night with a senior airport security officer in the UK. He assured me that the current scanners at BAA UK Airports are totally film safe. Even high speed films are safe for a reasonable number of scans.

The technology is so fast moving that at Manchester the hand luggage machines installed 2 months ago are going to be replaced by newer updated models soon. They get very heavy almost constant use.

Interestingly he said that the reason that all films are scanned, even when people ask for hand checks, is the wide variety of objects they have discovered concealed in film boxes, inside 35mm cassettes etc.

He went on to say that the scanners at most UK Airports and many other countries were made in the UK by a subsidiary of a US company, and that the research & manufacture took place near Gatwick Airport. He had been to the factory on a number of occasions.

When I asked about the printed leaflets I'd seen 2 years ago which gave advice on Film safety & baggage scanners he said they'd stopped using them because photographers who flew regularly with film knew the machines were completely film friendly.

I should add the 2 year old advice leaflet assured passengers/photographers that the machine were safe, even then.

Ian

[BrianShaw]

I should add the 2 year old advice leaflet assured passengers/photographers that the machine were safe, even then.

Ian, I almost wish that this was your introductory statment rather than a postscript... it is an absolute fact! Some of the even older research shows the same thing, but I think the warnings continued because of lawyers and fraidy-cats.

Out of curiousity, though, what was your contact's definition of "high speed" -- 800 ASA, 1600 ASA, 3200 ASA?