Airport security and film

[David A. Goldfarb]

I bring my film as a carry on and for 4x5" and smaller usually in a lead bag. I usually let it go through the X-ray these days and haven't had any problems. The last few flights I've taken, I was able to take a pretty extensive 4x5" kit through without getting any further inspection after an X-ray check, though normally there is something that attracts their attention (shutters, a cable release that looks like a syringe, etc.). In one of my last four or five flights they asked to see my rangefinder cams that overlapped in such a way that they looked like a scissors under the X-ray.

[QT Luong]

I used to carry film boxes under my clothes. They don't set off the metal detector if the foil is removed. However, in the current climate, I thought it was too much risk, and ask for hand-inspection. Sometimes it is granted and they just wipe with the explosive detector, sometimes, they insist on opening the boxes, in which case I let them X-ray.

[Ted Harris]

One further point that is sort of related,



After the TSA announcement that they would allow a thrid carryon for 'professional photographers' that was the subject of a thread here a while ago I thought it might mean something and then again might not.



The arilines are not obligated to to honor the TSA rule on bag numbers and I have specifically asked USAirways, United and American and all said no, they would not allow a third carryon for any reason at all. That by the way was from their customer relations folk and also gate agents (although I generally fly first class as a frequent flyer and one gate agent said they would turn their back for people flying up front) ... not worth the risk.



BTW,, I don;t blame them with most planes flying very full these days there is enough of a luggage space problem as it is.

[karl french]

In December I traveled to from Florida to California and back with my 8x10 and 2 boxes of film. 1 tri-x and 1 plus-x. I just put it through the carry-on xray machine in my backpack with the camera. I have been processing this film all week and I don't see any problems with fogging.

good luck

karl

[darter]

Just a note: Boston may have been the origin of two of the hijacked 9/11 flights, but the terrorist passengers were entered through Portland, ME airport via a connecting flight and therefore not checked at Boston. Curiously, Boston airport authorities were the only ones to receive (deserved) disciplinary and corrective actions.

[Robert Brown]

Hi Linda As you can tell from all the other replies, what you get at any given airport is going to be different. I went from Boise to Mexico recently and had no problems. Boise (BOI) really could have cared less, they did do a hand inspection that amounted to a casual glance at the film to see that it was sealed (DO NOT try to take any film that has been opened, taped shut or hand loaded) Portland (PDX) in Oregon was a little more rigid in their inspection and asked that my lowepro be opened upand they looked it over pretty closely, and by the time we got to Mexico-well thats a different story altogether. At Peuto Vallarta you get either a green light or a red light-green means you can go with no questions, get a red light and they can strip you down to your unmentionables in front of God and everyone. Most certanly here in the States it will depend on the status of the "level of caution." Coming back at San Fran we all (5 of us) were pulled from the line at verious points and hand scanned, though none of my film was singled out for further inspection. Airport personnel are trained to "profile" as ugly as that sounds. The FBI has done that for years (but then guess where most training for airport security personnel comes from), so the less attraction you can make to yourself, the better. A recient flight to Texas (via Minneapolis) went much smoother and without incident, though the overall caution level at the time was down to the low level. I sent all my film through the hand scanners for carry on and had no problems. Do be warned of this: There is no gray area for airport security anymore. They go from passive (which is very rare now) to crisis mode with no stops in between. Once you set them off, the best you can do is co-operate, fighting their system will only make the nightmare worse. I say this as I know some of the law enforcement people at the Boise Airport and they simply state: we don't play games anymore.

[Leung Kam Hon]

For those who have shipped films using UPS or FedEx, did you have any problem with the films received that way? I am thinking of shipping the film beforehand to the location, but I think freight gets X-ray as well and might even be at a much higher dose. Any experience of that?

[Frank Petronio]

I try to strip my roll film of any packaging and Readyloads of their wrapper, and put all of it into clear plastic bags. I save the empty Readyload foils in my camera bag to reuse on location, because I like the idea of using a dark envelope to store the film in the field. I also throw a sacrifical roll of 35mm TMax 3200 film into the bag so that I can show the inspectors that I truly have "ultra high speed film," which can help speed up the request to "please hand inspect my film." I also drop a few stickers and business cards into the bags that say "Frank Petronio, photographer, etc." to establish that I'm a professional, even if I'm not actually travelling for an assignment. I really like the above idea of including a junk 4x5 chrome to show inspectors what the film actually is - I'm going to start doing that too.

In general, I don't worry too much about a couple of domestic X-ray passes but I would grow concerned about multiple scans with international travel.

Ironically, the inspectors in Rochester, NY (home of Kodak, where I live) are the most severe and ignorant in the USA. But maybe everybody feels that way about their hometown TSA"professionals."

[Frank Petronio]

Does anyone know definitively whether FedEx or other shippers X-Ray their packages with stronger X-Rays? I've never shipped the film ahead because I thought the shippers would zap it far worse than the passenger inspection process. I know not to put film in checked luggage because they do use a stronger X-Ray.

Simply marking a Fed-Ex box "Do Not X-Ray: Film" does not inspire confidence that they won't X-Ray anyway.

[Randy Redford]

From all my contact with Fed-Ex, they say that if you tell them that there is undeveloped film inside, they will not x-ray it for domestic shipping (can't guarantee international). What I have done is to take the box with the film and packing to the office unsealed and show them the contents and explain that it is film that is not developed. They then mark the box once they have sealed it to insure that it does not get x-rayed.