Going to Europe next year and don’t know if my film will survive those X-Ray machines
I just returned from a 2-week trip from Billings, MT to Venice and Florence, Italy. On the way there I flew from Billings to Denver to Toronto to Frankfurt to Venice. On the way back it was Venice to Frankfurt to Denver to Billings. While I primarily used my phone to take photos, I took along my Minolta SRT-201 and 6 rolls of Ilford HP5+400 that I loaded from bulk. 4 of the canisters were Kalt brand and 2 were generic. All were metal. I planned to use the film camera for street photography and figured I would get what I get.
I do TSA-Pre and when going through Billings I asked for and received a hand inspection. I had the canisters in a ziploc bag and it was easy to see the film tongues from each one since I didn’t have them in plastic cans. They swabbed them and I was good to go. When I got to Frankfurt I was directed to immigration where they went though my paperwork and stamped my passport for a transit visa. There was some confusion about where I should go next to get to my gate and I ended up riding a tram to another terminal which, I guess, took me out of security so I had to go through it again when I arrived. They were not interested in hand inspecting anything BUT ME. I always go through the metal detector just fine but they didn’t have one so I had to go through the full body scanner while my film went through X-ray. I have an AMS800 implant which the metal detector doesn’t find but the body scanner did. I have no paperwork regarding the implant since it’s so small and I only wear a medical alert bracelet for it. They were not interested in any of that and took me aside and I received more physical contact than I have ever had from another guy. They sent me on my way.
In Italy I had the camera and an extra roll with me when I went to the museums and several of them, like the Uffuzi and San Marco, have you go through security which is an X-ray scan of your bag and a metal detector for you. No hand inspection due to the crowds.
On my return flight from Venice, in the turmoil of trying to stay with my group (I was on a university study abroad) I actually forgot to ask for a hand inspection so all the film went through the scanner. When I got to Denver I found that my flight to Billings was cancelled, supposedly due to weather. (This turned out to be untrue. It was snowing in Denver but I have flown through there many times in the winter and they just de-ice you and you go. What they did was, due to the current shortage of personnel, was to reallocate our plane to Palm Springs. They told us it was weather related so they they didn’t have to pay for our overnight stay in a hotel. I have filed a claim.) The next day I went through security (TSA-Pre) and ask for a hand inspection of my film. They took it away while my bag and I went through our scanners. They handed the zip-lock bag of film back to me and there was a bit of a kerfuffle over my carryon which they sent through the scanner about 3 times. The line was backing up and people were getting antsy. They finally gave me my bag and I moved into the outer area to put the film back into the bag. That’s when I noticed that one of the caps from a generic canister was loose in the bag. Sure enough, I could see the film. Sigh….
When I got home I developed the 3 rolls I’d shot, which included the now assuredly fogged one, in D76 stock. When I pulled them out of the wash I was surprised to find that the two that hadn’t been opened looked just fine. The one that was opened was fogged but only about the first half of the roll and even in that half I could still make out images. I guess the tightness of the roll on the spindle helped.
That’s my latest experience traveling with film and I’m looking forward to doing it again.
Going to Europe next year and don’t know if my film will survive those X-Ray machines
I will also be going overseas next year and have decided I wil buy the film at B&H and. have it shipped to my stay in EU, they have very cheap shipping rates. Once there, either dev locally or just ship it back myself. Havent figured out that part yet.
I will also be going overseas next year and have decided I wil buy the film at B&H and. have it shipped to my stay in EU, they have very cheap shipping rates. Once there, either dev locally or just ship it back myself. Havent figured out that part yet.
you'll likely have to deal with customs/import tax, which can be costly and annoying. If you include VAT, import tax, handling fees and shipping, that's easily 30% more in most countries. so personally I would just buy locally in the EU and process here as well.
I just went on a trip here in the U.S. In both airports, security had no problem hand-checking my film. But I did leave an exposed roll in my carry-on bag that went through CT-type scanner shown above (at BNA); haven't devoloped it yet but am not too worried... it was a roll of Ilford FP4.
Boo, hiss!
Do let us know what you find. Kodak has stated those new CT scanners are a threat to their films, even on a single pass.
I too had no difficulty with asking for hand inspection last traveled between SEA and LAX. Just have it all in zip lok bags.
Will do. I should also note that signs in the security line stated that the scanners will not affect film below ISO800, for whatever that's worth.
Visually there appear, in the clear areas, to be a slight higher density in the top strip.
On a recent flight to Mesa, AZ I repeated my previous non-scientific experiment that I mentioned in post #83 with a bit of a change. I shot about 12 frames of HP4+ and cut the roll in half in the darkroom leaving one half rolled back into the canister and the other loaded into another metal canister. I put this in a plastic container (Kodak, I think) and tossed this into my backpack that went through the scanners in Billings and in Mesa. Upon my return I loaded both strips of film onto separate reels and developed together in Xtol for 8 minutes. After drying, I put the strips side by side in a medium format holder and scanned with my Epson V500 and reversed to negative. Here is the result. The top strip is the one that went through airport scanners. Visually there appear, in the clear areas, to be a slight higher density in the top strip. I used a tool in a paint program to measure the density difference and there was about a 5 point difference on a 255 point scale. The upshot, for me, is that this file, as ISO 125, is not impacted (much) by going through these scanners.
View attachment 356012
As an aside, I have TSA-Pre so only have to go through the metal detector which is never a problem. However, in Mesa I was “randomly selected” to go though the full body scanner. I set off an alarm as that machine detected my medical implant. (It’s made of silicone with a VERY small part of titanium and is in my groin. It’s an AMS800 for those curious.) They told me we should go to a private room. I asked if I had to disrobe and was told that I didn’t but they were going to do a very intense pat down in that region. I told them to just get on with it. They did and I passed but wondered what do you tip for that kind of attention. ;-)
Yes, I see it, and the Lab readings on the digital file confirm a slight difference. It's not something that would show up in the images unless they all occupy only the toe of the film curve and are boosted extremely heavily in printing or digital post processing.
These airports, are they using the regular x-ray machines or newfangled CT's?
They both looked like the one in Post #103.
Next time take a digital camera…!
Which one? The round, tubular one? The square one with the rounded corners? Or the box-like one?
And were you allowed to bring bottled water in your bags and did you have to remove laptops and other electronic devices?
The round tubular one.
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