Thoughts on universal developers (for TX400)

[Doug A]

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I am fortunate to have family or friends at all of our travel destinations. When we travel by air I order film from Freestyle or B&H delivered to them. And I bring with me on the plane a USPS flat rate mailing box addressed to myself at home. When I am ready to return home I put all of the film, used and unused, in the box and all they have to do is drop the box off at the nearest post office and enjoy a nice lunch on what is left over from the cash I give them for postage. 

[grahamc]

9 hours ago, oldwino said:

These all look great! Nice shots!

Thanks very much ! I’m really happy with these 

[grahamc]

Ok the subject of X-Ray machines, I have been through 4 security checks so far with my film and only one initially refused to hand check my unexposed 35mm films (Berlin Airport) .

After a lengthy debate I was able to persuade them to hand check, but it was a close call. The other airports have agreed with a smile and been very helpful. All my films are in a see-through ziplock bag and removed from plastic cannisters.  
 

Actually, I have one roll of Tri-X 400 that accidentally went through the x-ray at my first airport.  So I decided I will take it through all the X-ray machines on the trip (total 7) and then shoot it when I get home and home develop. So I can report back whether passing through multiple x-ray machines is damaging or not for 400.   
 

I’ve been reading a lot about this subject and a good “trick” to force a hand check could be to use an x-ray protective bag. The idea is you put the films in the bag and put only that bag in a plastic tray of its own ... which goes through the machine. Of course the attendant can’t see what’s inside, so that tray will get pulled aside for a hand inspection. So you are  forcing a hand inspection.   This idea was posted in another forum after being suggested to a film shooter by a supervisor at Heathrow Airport (where they have a policy of not agreeing to hand checks for film). 
 

So far I haven’t had anyone refuse a hand check but I plan to buy and carry one of these bags and if they do then I will revert to the idea above, and see if it forces a hand check. If they have already refused a hand check then there would be nothing to lose. 

I’ll be passing through 7 security checks before the trip is complete but so far so good.  I’ll report back at the end and also on how the test roll looks when I develop it after it passes through all 7 x-ray machines. 
 

By the way, I gather there are some more powerful machines coming onto market and already in use in some USA and some other airports. But I am generally talking about standard xRay machines here.  
 

My approach so far is all the films completely unwrapped into a see-through bag, and ask nicely if a hand check is possible as they “can’t go through x-ray”.  Understand that this is an inconvenience for them and so approach it in a nice way with appreciation that they are helping you.  No problems at all other than Berlin so far.  Mix up a few 3200 films into the bag also which you can show them if they ask what strength they are.  This is partly what saved me in Berlin.  I don’t shoot 3200 but put a roll in as a dummy after reading about that in another forum.  In Berlin they asked me to separate the 800 and over out from the rest but I refused. It was quite an uncomfortable situation in truth ans I hope the last on the trip.  The main issue was the attendant passed me over to a Police Officer (rather than a supervisor) as soon as I asked, and his approach was just to flat out refuse. So it because a power play rather than a reasonable conversation. 
 

I’ve never really noticed police officers over-seeing security checks before so may have just been bad timing !   To be honest it was really poorly handled by this guy, it just seemed that he didn’t want to spend the 2 min checking them.  Eventually he did, aswell as taking a photograph of my passport 😳😂
 

cheers

g 
 

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by grahamc