Film in checked baggage

[Miguel Salhuana]

Hello all,

I am in need of some information. I had to check my carry on since it exceeded the weigh restrictions on Qantas. I did so before security and before thinking about it I handed the bag with the 4x5 film ISO 100 in it to the TSA and they put it through the checked bag machine. My question is has anyone ever been through this and was the film any good after going through the xray machine? I looked for a post that would answer my questions but I have not found one recent one yet. The films in question are Efke 100, Fuji provia 50 and 100. Thanks.

Regards,

Miguel

[IanG]

I did it accidentally like you when my back pack was over weight for carry on. As it happend I only had some unexpoesd 100 ISO film that wasn't critical and I assumed it would be fogged, on return I tossed it aside however I was testing some old film a year or so later so processed a sheet and it was fine.

Many airports use similar scanners for checked in luggage to those used for carry-on, but if they have suspicions it gets scanned again with more powerful x-ray scanners. So you may be lucky, however if the film was packed with electrical or mrtallic items etc near it and the first scans was not clear enough then it could well have fogging.

Ian

[debanjan]

Had to do that quite a number of times for both exposed and unexposed films.. nothing noticeable for film speeds under ISO 400.. your films should be OK..

[Fred L]

I've done the same and I would say for the most part, the film is toast and you'll see artifacts (wavy lines of differing amplitude) which will vary depending I think on the orientation of the film to the xray. Xray won't introduce fog afaic but the lines previously mentioned.

I wouldn't trust anything important to this film and would keep it for testing or inconsequential photos.