Air traveling security and film

[Juraj Kovacik]

Where is beter to have films when you have to go through these x ray scanners on airports - in carry-ob baggage you have with you in cabin or it is better to left it in checked baggage? Thanks for advice

[Leigh Youdale]

In your carry-on cabin baggage. It will almost certainly get fogged if it goes through the more powerful general baggage channels.

[Juraj Kovacik]

thank you. J

[BoxBrownie]

I recently came back from India and including internal flights and even an xray scan at tourist site (making a total of 10 passes and making me a nervous wreck worrying about it) my iso 100 b&w and iso 200 slide film showed, to my eyes no sign of damage. My film was always in my hand luggage. I would never check film in as those scanners can be much more powerful. I chose slower film as I knew there would be virtually no chance of a hand check these days and I got the impression that some of the younger staff had no idea what film was. One guy wanted to know how I could see what I`d taken as my cameras had no screens on the back.
Hope this offers a bit of reassurance.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

[debanddg]

+1 .. me too came back from Europe with multiple checks.. none of my ISO 50 / 100 rolls [30+ of B&W and slides] and one solitary roles of ISO 400 B&W roll demonstrated any sort of X-ray artefacts.. needless to state all these were in my cabin luggage..

[ozphoto]

Please don't pack in your hold luggage - I remember processing someone's holiday pictures that had been packed as such. It showed terrible fogging and also had the pattern of their hair-dryer fan cover on quite a few of the negatives. (Think circular cross-hatched ghosting).

From memory about 50+ rolls and all damaged in one way or the other; such sorry faces as they left the lab with their precious holiday photos. . . .

[Juraj Kovacik]

thank you all for help. i'm going to take just Iso 100, so I hope it woill survive in carry on bag. Thanks again

[MaximusM3]

Never in checked in luggage. I've carried 100, 400 and 3200 through 3-4 X-ray checks of carry-on and never had any issues. You can also politely ask to have your film hand-checked. Most airports screeners will oblige, although some get annoyed.

[jp498]

I just traveled and mailed most of my film ahead of me to the town where I was staying. I mailed it to myself, general delivery, in that town, and picked it up at the post office. Other people have been known to make arrangements for their hotel to receive it. It worked out great for me in terms of reducing stress for air travel.

I did take some film in my carryon and didn't get any hassle about it this time. They didn't didn't even open/take out my speed graphic. At both check points, they opened my camera bag and backpack and xrayed everything at least twice, and swabbed everything thoroughly. Probably a balancing of time versus thoroughness.

I use sheet film, and security tends to think of film as a roll product. Last time I traveled by air a couple years ago, they were insistent on opening up my film boxes as part of a hand inspection. I managed to prevent them and we both decided Xray would be preferable. If you are using roll film, it's probably not a big worry.

[Franswa]

Always carry on. I also ask them to hand inspect my film instead of going through the small x-ray machine. No one has turned me down yet