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film ruined by airport security


sksaito

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I rest my case...

 

Regards,

 

Bill

 

What case is that?

 

Well if taking things out of context is required to make you happy, I can accept that and hope you are happy. And I'll also accept and live with my assumption that some do not feel that film has any downsides compared to digital in any application and don't want to hear from anyone who does not share that view. If you want to send your film through X rays, that too is ok by me. But my film will always be hand inspected.

 

So if you want to debate anyone about there being some drawbacks to traveling with film, here is your man:

 

On a more technical front, Sebastiao Salgado spoke about film vs. digital. He no longer shoots with film as the reasons to go digital mounted up.

 

http://www.photoinduced.com/1791/sebastiao-salgado-the-genesis-project/

 

The silver in current medium format films, are currently at levels that 35mm was 25 years ago.

The 600 rolls of 220 he carried on shoots weighed about 60 lbs.

After 9/11 the security checkpoint that he goes through with exposed film (he told us 7 on the last trip) has affected the grain and contrast of the exposed film.

Plus there was the inevitable fight at each checkpoint to hand check the film. His assistant almost quit on his last trip from the constant battles.

So now it’s a Canon DSLR for him. 21 megapixels strong. But he is also looking at that new LeicaS2 with 37 megapixels.

And his “film”? about 1.5 lbs of cards.

Edited by AlanG
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So if you want to debate anyone about there being some drawbacks to traveling with film, here is your man:

 

On a more technical front, Sebastiao Salgado spoke about film vs. digital. He no longer shoots with film as the reasons to go digital mounted up.

 

Sebastiao Salgado : The Genesis Project | Photoinduced.com

 

That ridiculous Salgado story - what on earth has that hyped piece of non-news got to do with this, really? Goodness me, what a troll.

 

If you really want to see the 'advantages' of digital for travel, you can go look at this page:

 

Digital Photo Recovery - What Our Customers Are Saying:

 

Those are a small selection of the 'lucky' ones who managed to get their images back after mishaps with SD cards, and so on. A quick search on google will turn up tens of thousands of stories of people who weren't so lucky, and lost their travel/honeymoon/wedding images for ever, because of faults with their digital cameras and/or memory cards.

 

Anyway, you've pretty much confirmed my impression that you're simply trolling and on an ever more desperate mission to discourage film-users and scare away potential users. I don't think I'm alone in this opinion.

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Those are a small selection of the 'lucky' ones who managed to get their images back after mishaps with SD cards, and so on. A quick search on google will turn up tens of thousands of stories of people who weren't so lucky, and lost their travel/honeymoon/wedding images for ever, because of faults with their digital cameras and/or memory cards

 

I'm not sure that's a valid comparison. Using a data recovery business to decide whether digital is fragile or not is like going to a hospital and concluding that the entire country must be ill.

 

Personally I've never had any problems with digital images over the last 12 years or so - using a wide variety of cameras at widely varying price points. I don't know anyone else who has either. On the other hand I have had film screwed up by poor processing and/or printing. Anecdotal I know, but that's my experience.

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That ridiculous Salgado story - what on earth has that hyped piece of non-news got to do with this, really? Goodness me, what a troll.

 

If you really want to see the 'advantages' of digital for travel, you can go look at this page:

 

Digital Photo Recovery - What Our Customers Are Saying:

 

Those are a small selection of the 'lucky' ones who managed to get their images back after mishaps with SD cards, and so on. A quick search on google will turn up tens of thousands of stories of people who weren't so lucky, and lost their travel/honeymoon/wedding images for ever, because of faults with their digital cameras and/or memory cards.

 

Anyway, you've pretty much confirmed my impression that you're simply trolling and on an ever more desperate mission to discourage film-users and scare away potential users. I don't think I'm alone in this opinion.

 

Hmm... My film experiences since 1954:

 

Films ruined - about 40

Films lost -4 amongst which the film of my wife's favorite cat the day before he died.

Color films faded to unsable - about 100

 

Digital lost since 1998 - nil.

 

:rolleyes::rolleyes:

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I put unexposed and exposed film (and M cameras, if they have film in them) in lead film bags in my back pack through the machine. Experienced screen watchers who know what they're doing see the lenses in the camera bag and often recognize the shape as a film bag. My bag is occasionally searched afterward, mostly starting with the question "What do you have in here, a film bag?". 8 of 10 times (conservatively!), nothing is said, no search is done, and I'm walking to my plane.

 

No film bag? US airports are pretty decent about hand checking any ISO speed film if you ask them. Even if it's most of the film is 100 speed Ektar, I carry an old roll of Fuji 800 Press that I will most certainly be push processing (Tri-X or Delta 3200 works for this too).

 

Still getting a hard time about the machine being totally safe for 800 and below? I say, without being confrontational, "As a professional photographer, my images are my lifeblood. You're not going to be around later to explain to my client if this film is ruined. I don't know the output of xray light this machine puts out, and even if I did, I dont know when the last time was that it was calibrated. I dont know how that light is going to react with this particular emulsion..It's very important that this light sensitve film not go through the machine." There also are signs that say you can ask for a hand inspection of any film. Take advantage of that.

 

Take the film out of your M for this method...

 

Outside the US, film bags, film bags, film bags.

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Film bags = increased interest, multiple passes, increased power, increased risk of delay, increased risk of fogging...

 

If it were that easy all a terrorist would have to do is pop his bomb in a lead bag and stick a couple of lenses in there beside it. I'd no more use a lead bag than I would one of those camera straps with a steel cable running through it.

 

The "right" to a hand search is not universal. In the UK it isn't even an option.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

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Apart from some Kodachrome a few years ago, I've only been shooting film for a couple years, but for the record I've never lost images from film damage nor from any sort of digital corruption or loss. My point was that the whole issue is grossly overblown, and particularly that the edge cases being cited by the anti-film contingent are no more significant than the same extreme cases that could be cited if one were anti-digital.

 

As for this sort of thing: "Digital lost since 1998 - nil." Come on - people accidentally delete ALL the images in their camera, they have corrupt cards, their hard discs crash without backup, their sensor cracks at the top of a mountain. All of these events could be cited as significant reasons why traveling with film would be better than digital. But naturally they are just as insignificant as the danger of passing film through x-ray machines: in 99.9% of cases, there are no ill-effects whatsoever.

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I guess I am not people.... I do have backup and backup of a backup - I always protect my images in the camera - I never lost any image that counts (yes - once a series of test shots of ducks through my own foolishness) through card corruption, etc... Last Sunday I made a stupid mistake that deleted my data disk (1.5 terabyte of images) and I restored it within a few hours - If it comes to stupidity, I cannot recall how often I lost film images through opening a camera without rewinding the film - important ones too; over the years it runs certainly over half a dozen or more.....

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I was not trying to encourage an opportunity for another film vs. digital fight. I thought I was being an advocate for hand inspection of film if that is what you prefer to use. That is all. I never suggested that people should shoot digital instead. One person wanted someone to debate about it so I suggested he debate Salgado not me.

 

I think one thing that good photographers have always done is try to anticipate what can go wrong and cover their butts. This includes not having film scanned and various kinds of redundancy whether they are using film or digital.

Edited by AlanG
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Film bags = increased interest, multiple passes, increased power, increased risk of delay, increased risk of fogging...

 

 

That hasn't been my experience.

 

I take 20 or 25 trips, (that's 50 checkpoints back and forth, per year, since 2002) through airport security a year, (although most of it in the US). When (or IF) the lead bag is noticed, it is hand searched, removed from the camera bag or backpack, and the rest of the bag without the film or it's lead bag is rerun through the machine again. 8 times out of 10 I am not stopped and no search is performed at all. I'm not carrying any weapons in there, so what difference does it make?

 

In the US, asking for a hand check of ANY film is acceptable and totally reasonable at ANY TSA checkpoint. Just the same as you can opt out of that backscatter machine or millimeter wave scanner that sees through your clothes. Is this going to take longer? Yep! Who cares? Pat me down!

 

I dont care if the checkpoint is busy or not, my light sensitive material is not going in that machine. I'm resolute without being confrontational. TSA has a stated policy that I fully understand, and they will adhere to it. If I run into a new hire or someone with a chip on their shoulder I have NO problem getting a supervisor, and pulling that policy up on a smartphone.

 

Jay

Edited by Jaybob
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Jay, trust me, in the UK with that approach you would rapidly fail the "attitude test". You would find yourself out back in receipt of a full body cavity inspection and your films WOULD be passed through again - and again.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

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Jay, trust me, in the UK with that approach you would rapidly fail the "attitude test". You would find yourself out back in receipt of a full body cavity inspection and your films WOULD be passed through again - and again.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

 

In real life, people find me quite charming. Resolute without being confrontational.

 

The only place where I feel like I'm getting strip searched is in here...Jesus.

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If it makes you feel better, I hate film and I think all film users must be total morons!!! Doubly so if they are French or Republicans. I can almost tolerate Deardorf users.[...]

 

What a relief. I was feeling so left out. :) (Presuming you mean 8x10 Deardorf)

 

Regarding the fogging, I find it perfectly possible that the operator just plain screwed up, or at worst was acting intentionally to mess with the photographer.

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What a relief. I was feeling so left out. :) (Presuming you mean 8x10 Deardorf)

 

 

Any size Deardorf. The latest issue of Digital PhotoPro magazine has an article about Arny Freytag. He used to spend 4 days shooting a Playboy centerfold on 8x10 and now only has one morning to do it on digital.

 

I remember back when I was in school there was a professor who shot mountain and landscape photos with a 5x7 Linhof. He hated 35mm and called it "miniature" photography. You couldn't use smaller than 4x5 in his class. I had heard such horror stories about him that when I was assigned his class I fought with the director for about an hour until he assigned me to another class. So what happened? I became a large format architectural photographer and probably could have really benefited from his class.

 

You guys traveling with 35mm and a few rolls of film have it so easy. You have no idea what it was like to travel with 4x5, lighting, and film in holders (before Quickload/Readyload.) I hated using changing bags because images would be ruined by dust, so the film cases alone would be pretty big and I still have a ton of sheet holders. This is before checked luggage was getting zapped. My clients for this method are gone and budgets are not there either. Plus my clients want to either see images on the spot or I have to upload them every night on out of town assignments. So I couldn't even shoot 4x5 if I wanted and paid for the added cost myself.

Edited by AlanG
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