Has air travel hurt film photography?

O.K. - I'm convinced! It's that there have always been places where I could purchase film wherever I travelled, so I've never brought any on board. I wish I could site an article I read a short time ago warning about film & air travel.

DF said:

O.K. - I'm convinced! It's that there have always been places where I could purchase film wherever I travelled, so I've never brought any on board. I wish I could site an article I read a short time ago warning about film & air travel.

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As long as you can do this then that's fine as you cut out all scanning except on what might be a single leg to return home but if you can buy film a lot more cheaply from home from a reliable retailer before flying then it seems that with other people's experience this might be the more sensible option.

In my then total ignorance of film and its storage etc I once bought colour film from an open-air stall in Egypt in what was close to 100F. It may have been out in that heat for days on end and stored in little better conditions.

The film processed OK so I got away with it as they say but on balance the risk from airport scanners is almost certainly much less than the risk I ran

Your article might have been written by a journalist on a "no-news" day. These days every media article seems to have to have a sting in the tale. Spreading alarm and despondency sells news. Happiness only sells champagne

pentaxuser

The technology is much better, as you say. All items get hit once with the Rays. The improvements are mostly imaging software to increase probability of detection without having to hit them with more Rays. The dosage per hit has always been approx constant for the carryon type scanners

Huge improvements on CT type. The dual phase scanning at least gives some chance that checked baggage can be cleared without a CT hit.

Nobody has cared enough about film since 2003 for sure. The TSA 5 scan advisory has about 200 percent safety factor for medium speed color neg and 100 percent for 400 sped b&w. So even less reason to care.

Ken Nadvornick said:

And in fairness to the TSA and the manufacturers of the scanning hardware, that page shows as last being updated 12 years ago ("Updated April 8, 2003"). Scanning technology has improved markedly since then, according to what I've read.

But it would still follow the same common sense logic...

No matter how bad it is, less (12 years later) is always going to be better than more (12 years earlier), when one can't judge the absolute degree of danger for any given sample of film.

Ken

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heespharm said:

Will using those lead lined bags made for film be ok , or will it cause red flags to go off


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Don't use them - the staff just turn the machine up higher apparently. Just ask for a hand inspection. Your request could just convince someone that film is still alive and kicking!

I had a roll of TCN400 go thru three separate flights fully scanned, here in Oz. No damage as far as I or the Lab could tell. And I put an an X on the pack everytime it went thru, so I know I got the right film in mind.

The inspectors can't increase the strength of the x-rays, only the gain of the sensor.

Plus a number of other imaging enhancements that sometimes mak people mistakenly believe their goods are being repeatedly zapped.

David A. Goldfarb said:

The inspectors can't increase the strength of the x-rays, only the gain of the sensor.

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