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Carrying film on international trip


jifjif

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I never had problems with carrying film on international trips. So to speak I never saw any damage to film even though this topic is highly discussed in the internet. A lot of people regard this reputed "problem" of film one of the big advantages of digital cameras. I thought in the same direction until I looked at following pixel errors of my digital camera after a business trip involving heavy scanning at airports and especially at every hotel. The image shown is only a strong crop of the image to show the pixel errors. Actually the pixel errors spread over the hole image and was far worse than I can show here.

To cure it I had to sent in the camera.

ActuallyI lost some confidence in digital gear especially with travelling in countries with security issues.

 

Regards

Steve

 

Steve, these errors certainly can come from air travel - especially over the poles, but they cannot come from X-rays. Sensors are completely resistent against x-ray radiation, in fact nearly 100% of medical x-ray equipment nowadays is digital and thus sensor-based.

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Steve, these errors certainly can come from air travel - especially over the poles, but they cannot come from X-rays. Sensors are completely resistent against x-ray radiation, in fact nearly 100% of medical x-ray equipment nowadays is digital and thus sensor-based.

 

Although X-Rays cannot harm digital media, I have heard and read warnings about not carrying memory cards through airport metal detectors (In your pockets for example.).

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  • 5 years later...

I'm planning an international trip with my M6 and 20 rolls of T-Max 100 and after all of the conflicting advice about this topic, I decided to do my own test. I had my wife take a roll of exposed Tri-X 400 on a business trip where the film was scanned twice: once at SFO and once at MEX.

 

Interestingly, she said that at both airports, the TSA agents were now advising that travelers NOT put film through the X-ray machines (no mention of film speed). Regardless, she left the film in her carry-on and after it had gone through the scanner, an agent asked if if there were any photos on the roll of film because they could now be ruined.

 

I developed the roll in 1:100 Rodinol for 1 hour. No signs of X-ray fog/steaks whatsoever. You can view the photos here: https://www.lomography.com/homes/photowang/albums/2112603-scanned-2-times-at-airport-x-ray-05-18-16 

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My biggest problem is the constant changing regulations and policies. It seems every time I travel there are different requirements. TSA has one set of rules, Homeland security has a different. Each country had there own too. Not only we travelers have to contend with this, the security people have to contend with people who are not used to there rules. They need to get people through while being as thorough as possible.

 

An comparable example would be if I fly from Hong Kong to Chengdu via China air, you are not allowed to have you hand phone on, the entire trip. But if you fly via Hong Kong air you use the wifi to control the in flight entertainment thus must use your mobile phone.

 

We film users experience they same changing rules, but those who who enforce them add there own policies as well.

Edited by Soden
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Film problems? What about camera problems?

 

This year in Holland (of all places) I had a wet behind the ears inspector who must have just turned 17, who was so stupid he unpacked my M4 and showed it to his boss, as he had never seen a film camera before and did not know if it was safe !!

The same has happened with my fountain pens, which have also been unpacked 2 or 3 times as if they were secret weapons of some kind (what are these pointy objects in your bag?)

 

For all the talk of airport security, this is the level of guards in some EU locations.

If you fly 50 times a year, it gets to be a real bore working with idiots like these.

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Film problems? What about camera problems?

 

This year in Holland (of all places) I had a wet behind the ears inspector who must have just turned 17, who was so stupid he unpacked my M4 and showed it to his boss, as he had never seen a film camera before and did not know if it was safe !!

The same has happened with my fountain pens, which have also been unpacked 2 or 3 times as if they were secret weapons of some kind (what are these pointy objects in your bag?)

 

For all the talk of airport security, this is the level of guards in some EU locations.

If you fly 50 times a year, it gets to be a real bore working with idiots like these.

 

Yes, its so annoying for them to be thorough. I'd much prefer if they were more relaxed and just assumed some things were OK. It may mean a few more planes being blown up in flight but hey ho! 

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My experience in the US and Israel has been that security is very accommodating with regard to hand inspecting film.  I had to pull the reigns on one lady, though, recently in Miami who thought she needed to break the seal on my 120 rolls and open them up.  So you need to be careful and don't assume that people know how to handle film and what protocol to follow.

 

In the UK, on the other hand, I recently (two weeks ago) ran into difficulty at Heathrow.  They insisted on running all of my film through the scanner and, being a obnoxious New Yorker, I held up the entire line and asked to speak with a manager, who, after some negotiation, hand inspected my exposed rolls and ran the others through the scanner.  They took the view that they only needed to hand inspect film with ISO of 3200 or higher.  Me thinks they confused the issue and that, while 3200+ ISO film is within the scope of high risk, it never hurts to hand inspect everything just in case.  

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...I had to pull the reigns on one lady, though, recently in Miami who thought she needed to break the seal on my 120 rolls and open them up...  

Last week I heard of a friend of a friend here in KL who took 220 film to Jakarta to shoot a documentary of an event, and the unaware Security Officer unrolled each roll. Having no 120 magazine, that was that for the trip. 120 is so much more acceptable...

Edited by EoinC
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Last week I heard of a friend of a friend here in KL who took 220 film to Jakarta to shoot a documentary of an event, and the unaware Customs officer unrolled each roll. Having no 120 magazine, that was that for the trip.

 

wow  :o

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  • 5 weeks later...

I traveled recently from the US to Germany and back. I took 3 rolls of Kalt cassettes with self-rolled Ilford HP5+ 400 film and one commercial Kodak TriX 400 with me in my carry-on luggage which went through gate security twice - the unexposed film on my way to Europe and the exposed films on my way back. I had each of the film rolls stored in a regular plastic film roll container. I also bought two Agfa APX 400 films in Germany which I took with me back to the US. I have just developed my films, and all turned out fine. I believe the security scan of my carry-on luggage had no effect on the film. Let's not forget that the effect of background radiation in the plane flying for 7-9 hours is likely higher on the films than the security scan itself nowadays. 

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