Recent travels with film, TSA scanners, and so on

[Ken Bingham]

Just got back from visiting family in San Diego, California, and while I was down there (I live in Idaho) I bought some rolls of Ilford film at George's Camera Shop in Clairemont. Since we were scheduled to fly back home, the purchase raised the issue of TSA security scanners fogging the film. I did some reading on the web before-hand, but found mostly contradictory advice. The sales guy at George's told me when he's faced with a similar situation, he unboxes the rolls, puts them in a ziplock bag, and hands them to the nearest TSA agent with the request that they be hand-inspected. I followed his advice but I was uncertain if I should take the rolls of 120 film out of their foil wrappers. Finally I took them out of their boxes and shoved them in a ziplock, still wrapped in foil. To make a not very long story short, all came out well. Few people traveled with film any more, I reasoned, but even though I was uncertain how TSA would react, advisory signs mentioned the potential liabilities of scanning unprocessed film. The agent I accosted seemed a little uncertain about how to proceed but he finally opened the bag, fingered the rolls, and handed them back to me without insisting on scanning them. I'll find out in a few days how the film fared when I do some shooting.

 

[DWThomas]

This topic resurfaces regularly here. Just don't put film in your checked luggage. The scanning of carry-on stuff is safe for at least 400 film. I did a round trip to Europe in April; saw no problems with 400TX and HP-5.

In checked bags all bets are off.

 

[piffey]

I did some unfortunate testing with this purchasing rolls while abroad. I shoot all HP5, shot at El800 and have used the exact same process for development for years. I always ask TSA to hand check, but at London Heathrow they insisted that all film goes through the scanner. This trip I flew through London a total of 8 times with rolls purchased at various points between. All other countries hand checked for me so my only scans happened there.

Rolls scanned 4 times or less had no issues, but after that oddities started to appear. The rolls scanned the full 8 times from the beginning of the trip were practically unusable. I got a few working prints, but the grain is golf ball sized, some weird banding across negatives and some parts just exposed strangely. I spoke with an old pro that traveled a lot previously and he told me his general rule was:

100 ISO can go through 16 times.
200 ISO can go through 8 times.
400 ISO can go through 4 times.
800 ISO can go through 2 times.

You get the pattern. This is due to X-rays simply being light. You’re basically preflashing the film with each run through. I confirmed this with an old Kodak document on film in airports:

https://www.kodak.com/global/en/service/tib/tib5201.shtml

Best of luck to you. Hope your results come out.

 

[Ken Bingham]

This topic resurfaces regularly here. Just don't put film in your checked luggage. The scanning of carry-on stuff is safe for at least 400 film. I did a round trip to Europe in April; saw no problems with 400TX and HP-5.

In checked bags all bets are off.

The notion of 400 being safe was one of the points with contradictory info on the various web pages I read (what a gawd-awful sentence). Two of my rolls were Ilford XP2 400, and since that seemed to be the upper limit in all the advice I read, I decided not to risk anything by having it scanned. BTW, all of the pages I read on-line agree that leaving film in checked luggage is bad news.

 

[jeffreyg]

I also unbox and remove the film from the foil wrappers and place them in ziploc bags. If I have enough time I ask for hand check however, that usually leads to them checking my hands and the film for explosive residue which can take time if you are running close to catching your flight. I have never had fogging with my film (always carry-on). If you want hand check and they are reluctant say that you exposed the film at 800 ISO. I use Delta 400.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

http://wwwsculptureandphotography.com/

 

[Ken Bingham]

[snip] [/snip]

Best of luck to you. Hope your results come out.

Thanks, piffey.

 

[Ken Bingham]

I also unbox and remove the film from the foil wrappers and place them in ziploc bags. If I have enough time I ask for hand check however, that usually leads to them checking my hands and the film for explosive residue which can take time if you are running close to catching your flight. I have never had fogging with my film (always carry-on). If you want hand check and they are reluctant say that you exposed the film at 800 ISO. I use Delta 400.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

http://wwwsculptureandphotography.com/

Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to removing the foil. I saved the darned boxes because I wanted the end-tabs. I did wonder if the foil would offer any protection from the scanner, though. I don't remember reading anything about that.

EDIT: Just read what the Kodak document linked by piffey above has to say about lead-lined bags. Clearly, the foil won't offer any protection at all, if a lead-lined container is only partly useful.

 

[BrianShaw]

The original industry study providing recommendations to FAA stated “up to 5 passes through carry-on baggage checkpoint systems” “up to and including 800 ASA” as the safe recommendation with an “appropriate margin for safety”. The actual study, of course is much more detailed with plenty of experimental data. Much of their assessment was objective measures (Dmin increase from reference) but much was subjective assessment of “observed results”.

Since it’s all about the law of averages... some folks may get/notice effects sooner and some later.

 

[AgX]

This topic resurfaces regularly here. Just don't put film in your checked luggage.

However the topic of cumulated radiation has been less discussed, especially cases of many exposures.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I would never take the film out of the foil wrapping. The wrapping allows refrigerating and freezing. If you take off the foil the next thing that will happen is the inspectors will snap the paper tape and unroll the film to look for manufacturing defects. Keep the unexposed film in the original packaging.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I have had 35mm up to 8x10 film scanned multiples times (carry on), and never had any issues with fogging. ISO 100 to 400.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I have had 35mm up to 8x10 film scanned multiples times (carry on), and never had any issues with fogging. ISO 100 to 400.

I agree. I do not take ISO 800 films flying.

 

[Ken Bingham]

I would never take the film out of the foil wrapping. The wrapping allows refrigerating and freezing. If you take off the foil the next thing that will happen is the inspectors will snap the paper tape and unroll the film to look for manufacturing defects. Keep the unexposed film in the original packaging.

As I noted, I was reluctant and so I didn't, but I swear the George's guy said he does it. He didn't mention checking for defects lol.

 

[Sirius Glass]

We are here from the Government and will help you.