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Long haul multi-stop film-carrying report, 2022


grahamc

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On 8/10/2022 at 2:36 PM, stray cat said:

I arrived back in Melbourne today and will develop a couple of rolls of FP4+ tomorrow. I don't expect any issues with these as I bought them in the USA and all my films in the USA were hand-inspected, usually without me having to even ask.

Interestingly, my experience at Melbourne was that the customs guy, after me asking nicely and gentle insistence after he refused, insisted on X-Raying my films through a traditional scanner. Curiously he agreed that it was OK for me to put them in a Domke lead bag to go through the scanner, and having gone through in the bag they were hand inspected on the other side anyway. In the USA (LAX international and domestic and SEATAC domestic) hand inspection was always willingly offered as soon as they saw I had film cassettes in a clear plastic bag. 

Following this experience in future I'll always carry a minimal number of rolls of film, freed from their boxes and plastic containers, in a clear plastic bag that also contains the printed out Kodak warning that these are photographic films and must not be X-rayed (I printed this sheet from Kodak's website). I'll also always carry my Domke lead bag just in case and, where possible, buy the bulk of my film at my destination, where ideally I'd also have it developed before going through more X-rays. 

Is traveling with film worth it? It certainly is for me, but of course that is a question for each of us to decide for ourselves. I'm very interested to hear how Graham's films fared.

I like the idea of printing the Kodak sticker.  I also like the idea of helpful and proactive staffers of the security process (as in your US experience). Really not that hard is it surely :D

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The emulsive article is illuminating.  Where I may have thought that my various films were unaffected, they may well have had some increase in grain, some shadow detail loss, and some color shift.  The impact was just not so much that I noticed it without having an identical, but unaffected photo to compare with.  Yes, some underexposed photos didn’t look great, but I always thought that was due to the underexposure.  Sounds like it’s worthwhile trying to avoid the scanners, but not a total disaster if it doesn’t work out?

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2 hours ago, Anbaric said:

Thanks. Very interesting links ! Particularly the Ilford one 

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4 minutes ago, harmen said:

The emulsive article is illuminating.  Where I may have thought that my various films were unaffected, they may well have had some increase in grain, some shadow detail loss, and some color shift.  The impact was just not so much that I noticed it without having an identical, but unaffected photo to compare with.  Yes, some underexposed photos didn’t look great, but I always thought that was due to the underexposure.  Sounds like it’s worthwhile trying to avoid the scanners, but not a total disaster if it doesn’t work out?

Yes I agree. And any concerns about traditional scanners kinda pale into insignificance the more I read about it. Particularly if in a Domke bag and 400 ISO or under 

 

 

Edited by grahamc
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@harmen hopefully the test roll that has passed through 8 traditional and 1 CT scan will return results consistent with your “not the end of the world” comment 🤞 

If taking precautions and encountering helpful staff I don’t think a real life roll would be so unlucky (would it !? 😂)

Although like you I’m doubtful that I would pick up on “damage” similar to the test in the Emulsive article - Thankfully the impact seems to be in less than optimal performance, rather than obvious damage or marks.  
 

(I have seen others with wavey lines on the negative though after one CT pass, so let’s see how the roll fared).  Sadly no visit from the postman today so I don’t have developer to comment further. 

Edited by grahamc
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  • 4 months later...

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Hello. I finally developed my test roll of tri-x 400 (passed through 8 conventional x-ray machines and once through a new CT scanner)

Some frames had noticeable banding on , although this was only the first 4 or 5 frames. 
 

what was evident is that the rest of the roll was extremely poor quality also.  Much like a very under exposed image - lots of grain and generally unappealing. 
 

it’s a shame my test didn’t isolate whether the roll would’ve ended up like this via the conventional x-ray machines only. But for sure it was more or less ruined somehow

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On 12/15/2022 at 3:12 AM, grahamc said:

Hello. I finally developed my test roll of tri-x 400 (passed through 8 conventional x-ray machines and once through a new CT scanner)

Some frames had noticeable banding on , although this was only the first 4 or 5 frames. 
 

what was evident is that the rest of the roll was extremely poor quality also.  Much like a very under exposed image - lots of grain and generally unappealing. 
 

it’s a shame my test didn’t isolate whether the roll would’ve ended up like this via the conventional x-ray machines only. But for sure it was more or less ruined somehow

Sounds like it was fogged, then.

I've read this morning that the UK will be installing CT scanners at all the major airports in the next 2 years. Which means that Heathrow could become even more hellish very soon...

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2 hours ago, oldwino said:

Sounds like it was fogged, then.

I've read this morning that the UK will be installing CT scanners at all the major airports in the next 2 years. Which means that Heathrow could become even more hellish very soon...

That doesn’t sound pleasant at all ! 

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