Ilford Film Airports

[Tin Can]

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/faqs/

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[diagonale-du-flou]

Thanks for this link
it will become complicated to make your films travel...

[Vaidotas]

To my experience inspection by hand for cabin baggage avoiding x ray scan is nonexistant in European airports.
Few weeks ago x ray scanning resulted moderate base fog on 120 Ilford Delta 100 (round flight Kaunas, Lithuania - Alesund Norway).
I was really surprised to see it on fresh film, processed in Xtol 1:1.

[martiansea]

I wonder if one of those lead-lined film bags will help? I used one while traveling in China - they x-ray your bags before getting on nearly any public transport in the cities. Maybe going thru once will be OK, but getting x-rayed a dozen times while traveling around Shanghai got me a little worried. My scissors for cutting roll film got confiscated. LOL

[callsign.BULL]

Samey-samey from Kodak Alaris. Downloadable warning labels here: https://imaging.kodakalaris.com/photographers/resources .

[r.e.]

Does anyone know if shipping film to your destination is at this point a way to avoid x-ray scanning? There doesn't appear be a problem with retailers shipping film, at least not domestically in the US.

[Two23]

I wonder if one of those lead-lined film bags will help? I used one while traveling in China - they x-ray your bags before getting on nearly any public transport in the cities. Maybe going thru once will be OK, but getting x-rayed a dozen times while traveling around Shanghai got me a little worried. My scissors for cutting roll film got confiscated. LOL

What I've heard is they just turn up the power until they can see in.


Kent in SD

[r.e.]

What I've heard is they just turn up the power until they can see in.

Or conclude that it's an attempt to prevent them from doing their job

[Graeme Hamilton]

Does anyone know if shipping film to your destination is at this point a way to avoid x-ray scanning? There doesn't appear be a problem with retailers shipping film, at least not domestically in the US.

My local post office says everything going out of major cities gets x-rayed. They said there is no way around it, and no such thing as a hand check request or similar that you have at US airports. They also told me the "do not x-ray" labels would flag the package as suspicious and result in closer inspection, potentially involving more powerful x-raying. Not sure how this increasingly common practice is going to impact all the mail service labs, since most of us do not have a local lab that does e-6, its a real problem.

[Dave Sh]

A similar topic is going on over on the Location and Travel section. Here's what I recently shared over there...

I recently returned from a family trip to France (June, 2022). I took four sheets of Ilford FP4+ in 4x5 (3 exposed, 1 unexposed) and ran a 'scanner fogging test' on our return flights. All four sheets were in a TMAX-100 nested box and bagged in the Ilford bag within the nested boxes. Outbound, both flights were US in origin, only went through security once - TSA readily accepted a hand check request. Return flights; Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and Heathrow - went through security at each airport.

At CDG, there was no way they were going to do a hand inspection - at least that was the impression they gave me when I asked if they'd hand-inspect the disposable camera my daughter had taken on the trip. Granted, I'm not fluent in French, but I did give an honest effort to make the request in French. At Heathrow, had I pressed, they seemed like they would have done a hand inspection. One of the inspectors at Heathrow even went to a supervisor to ask what film speed was safe to run through the scanner - he was told 800 and below. I'm not up to speed on the scanner technology, but these appeared to be a newer variety, presuming they were CT scanners at both airports.

I've developed and scanned two of the negatives; the blank/unexposed negative and the one attached. I can't see any discernible fogging/impact on the negative that would leave me to believe it was a result of being run through the scanners. The unexposed sheet looks consistency black, albeit with what looks like some dust and residual water marks during drying. Note to self; do a better job at removing the water when hanging the negatives up to dry.

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