Airports and 4x5 film

[eddie]

the scanner can see into the lenses. no need to open the shutter and aperture. i have carried a bag full of lenses. i saw them go through the scanner. they looked just like they do in person, hollow tubes that look empty....you can not see the glass. what i have learned here is do not stuff them with contraband as they WILL see it!

for the sheet film what i do is put it in a separate zipper pocket on the outside/top flap of the suitcase. so when they look in it they go for the lenses inside and never care to see the small outside zipper pocket. OR i send the film through in a separate bag. i make sure that that bag will not get flagged....like an empty laptop bag with only film boxes inside.

eddie

[Bob Kerner]

I just flew from NY to Louisiana today. Took Eddie's advice (put sealed boxes of film into my otherwise inconspicuous knapsack) and sent them thru the scanner. No problems whatsoever.

I'm going to err on side of caution and mail the exposed sheets directly to the lab, rather than potentially have to deal with the opened boxes on the return trip.

[Jim Ewins]

Ship your film - do not let those TSA jerks get hold of it. I had that problem at McClarren after shooting Death Valley - when I asked to speak with the supervisor I was threatened with missing my flight. That was 6 years ago and I have not been on another flight - federal prisons may not be fun.

[Marc B.]

Regarding whether your baggage and/or packages may be X-rayed by airport baggage scanning equipment, think about this.

Your airport handles flights from multiple airlines. Your airport also handles packages from multiple shipping carriers as well.

Whether you ship packages by your country's national mail carrier, by UPS, or by FedX, these same bags of mail, trays and boxes of mail, or small packages and large parcels, will all, at some random time, somewhere, run the possibility of being X-rayed, possibly multiple times, at any of the airports your packages may travel through en-route to the final destination.

No matter which carrier you hand the package over to for shipping, and no matter which company's employee delivers a package to your door, that package most likely has gone through several airports during it's journey to you.

[eduardtoader]

I´m here too. If I ship my unprocessed film with the post or another shiping service, the pack will pass through the xray scaners?

And, if I buy film from another country the pack pass through Xray in some place? Then, how are buying film the european shops from Kodak or Fuji?

[eddie]

i have never had any issues....NONE. shipping film. exposed or other wise from asia, europe, and the USA. no problems with the planes either. no problem with TSA.

[Noah A]

I just got back from my first trip with 4x5 film.

I flew from Philadelphia to Las Vegas. I took 250 sheets of Portra 400...but I combined boxes so I didn't need to lug around 25 boxes. I used Freestyle Photo's black film bags and could easily fit 50 sheets of film in each 10-sheet box.

I carried-on my camera bag as well as a small bag that only contained my changing bag and the film. I put it through the x-ray machine with no problems. (I was a little surprised they didn't hand-check my camera bag, with all that metal in there, but I'm not complaining.)

I usually shoot two sides of each holder for each shot, for redundancy. On this trip I split up the film. When unloading I put all of the a-sides of my holders in one box and the b-sides in another box.

I sent half of the film directly to the lab via USPS Priority Mail and held the backup sheets until I got home.

The good news is that I just got my first two days worth of film back and it looks fine.

I figure this system will be my normal practice for travel within the US. Outside the US I probably won't ship the film back, as I assume the film would be more likely to go through baggage screening.

But my film cameras and big lenses attracted no attention from screeners nor did my non-factory sealed film boxes.

[David de Gruyl]

If you send it through the x-ray machine, sheet film looks (un)surprisingly like sheets of something. Not generally something that is a component of a bomb.

I have more problems with stacked filters than anything else. (occasionally, I get interest in the equipment, but mostly just "oh, ok").

[Noah A]

If you send it through the x-ray machine, sheet film looks (un)surprisingly like sheets of something. Not generally something that is a component of a bomb.

Very true, but I was still a bit worried that they'd want to open the boxes! By the way I also printed out labels on my laser printer that had my logo, contact info in case of loss, and in big print: "Photographic film open only in complete darkness".

I thought that my Technikardan would raise an eyebrow, since it has a lot of metal, large l-shaped standards, etc. Though I suppose since it's metal, they could kind of see what it was in the x-ray.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Noah, pardon me for asking but why-oh-why-on-Earth would you subject your professional film to Xrays at all, since you don't have to by requesting hand inspection?