Air travel with sheet film loaded vs. in boxes

[jp]

I just got back from traveling with 4x5 film and a graflex.

The graflex is a solid metal box, especially with the folding metal hood on the back. The nicest TSA people were miffed they couldn't "burn through it" with their xray machine. They swabbed all my cameras and lenses and film.

Everywhere I went, everything was swabbed with multiple swabs, even the camera equipment after it went through the xray scanner.

3 of the 4 checkpoints, swabbing the film boxes was sufficient for them. One checkpoint they ganged up on me, 4 of them. 1 was making me stay put, another was questioning me about my tickets, one was going through pelican camera case, then another was getting into my film boxes, and I was keeping an eye on the tray of important personal items as other travelers continued to pass by. I was able to multitask enough to notice the lady starting to open my film boxes. Lots of duct tape bought me plenty of time to notice and tell her to not open that box. She demanded I either let her open it, xray it, or leave. I let them xray it, and was on my way.

Next time, I will send the film separately via UPS or USPS. I wanted to send the film back that way, but the UPS/Fedex places were closed saturday night/sunday morning, and I was flying on sunday.

[John Jarosz]

If you won't let them x-ray the film box, they will open it to make sure of the contents. factory seals mean nothing.

Since it will be x-rayed anyway, leave them in the holders.

john

[ki6mf]

TSA is supposed to hand inspect film if asked. Be Polite and professional. As stated allow extra time for them to inspect all of your "strange" gear. Once TSA even asked me if they could show my field camera to the staff as they have never seen one other than in training videos. I have shipped exposed film by ground transportation without issue too.

[jp]

I was in no hurry at all. I had a couple hour layover. "hand inspect" film means different things to us and them. To us, it probably means look it over, shake it, swab it. To them it means use their hands to take it apart and see what's inside.

[Ray Riedel]

I just traveled to Berlin. I brought some type 55 polaroid so I wouldn't have to worry about exposed film being x-rayed on the way back, or unused film boxes being opened. I carried on my type 55 film and wooden 4x5 Zone VI camera. The TSA people were entertained by the camera, swabbed it and fortunately let me open it up (as opposed to them opening it up wrong and damaging it).

My packed luggage was another story. I packed a tripod, a daylight developing tank, plastic bottle of sodium sulfite, a spotmeter, a ball head and the polaroid 545 holder. I placed a thick sheet of cardboard over it all with diagrams showing where things were and what they were. The sodium sulfite was inside the daylight developing tank -where x-ray may not see it- so I showed it with phantom lines on the diagram as inside the tank: "Sodium sulfite for photo developing (Kodak)". (I wanted it something that would be easy for Germans to translate also.) The tripod was not only listed on the "map" but it was inside a box labeled in 2" letters: "Photo tripod."

I was at the gate when a guy from TSA came up calling out my name. He asked: "Are you the bow hunter?" Yep, even after they opened the luggage they thought the tripod was compound bow! He said they took away the sodium "sulfide".
I knew it would make no difference to argue, but told him for his paperwork it is sodium sulfite -big difference.

My lesson: Buy film, chemicals, etc after I arrive. Fotoimpex has everything I need and 2 to 3 day developing if I want to skip the hotel bathroom lab. Next time I'll just bring empty film holders. I did get a few good shots with the type 55.

[Tim Meisburger]

I travel all the time with film. I always put it in my carry-on in a lead bag and almost never have to open it! Do tape the box, as the one time (in Japan) that they wanted to look at it, a women opened a box before I could stop her. Luckily, there was still the other box, and black plastic bag, and nothing was ruined. I am starting to think it makes most sense to carry film in a pocket, but truthfully I have never had a problem with the carry-on scanners. These days though a lot of the airports have luggage scanners as you enter, and those I think might toast film.

Oh, I also carry sodium sufite and metol in plastic jars in checked luggage so I can mix D-23. I used to carry small plastic bottles of liquid developer and fixer in my checked luggage and never had a problem. Just don't tell them you have it and they think its shampoo...

[Frank Petronio]

Reading the OP's question, just in case the guy is clueless, do not ever put any sort of film into your checked luggage. The X-Rays for checked luggage are much more powerful and will greatly risk fogging your film.