Travelling/shipping unprocessed film

[Paul Coppin]

I haven't kept up with the issues of travelling with unexposed or unprocessed film over the last couple of years. Has the X-ray scanning issues got better or worse? Also for purchasing film out of country (I'm in Canada) and bringing it in (as in deals in Velvia 100 8x10 in the US), are Canadians getting it into country without somebody's fingerprints all over it, or "prefogged"?

[Ron Marshall]

Paul, on my last trip, two years ago, I travelled from Canada to Thailand, and then took a number of short flights in the area. At some airports carry-on luggage was scanned three times at separate check-points. Most places agreed to hand inspection, but as a test I left a 35mm roll of Sensia (similar to Astia) in my carry-on. It was x-rayed 20 times without visible fog or color shift. This was at airports in Canada, Thailand and Cambodia.

[BrianShaw]

Echoing what Ron just said: I think the situation has gotten better... partly because the inspection process has become more sensitive and allowing more hand-checking of professional film. My travel has been US and Europe. About half the time I request hand-check (and get it most times); the other half of the time I just push the film through the x-ray machine. I've never noticed a problem. I've had film x-rayed up to 6 times.

Just don't put film in the checked baggage -- it's guaranteed to be ruined! The InVision CTX that's most often used for checked baggage is quite high powered.