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TSA opened 4x5 outer box. Am I toast?

amellice

Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2012
Messages
431
Location
Snohomish, WA
Format
Medium Format
Hello friends. Flying from Seattle to Denver and had couple of open 4x5 boxes (TMax 100, Ektar, Velvia 50) and some sealed ones. The film inside the open ones is packaged in the internal plastic bag and in the triple boxes.
The TSA officer insisted on opening the most outer box then he ran the swaps on them. He left the sealed boxes as is.

With that being said, my question is with removing the most outer box but leaving the sheets inside the internal black plastic bag inside 2 boxes, are these sheets gone?

My guess is that they’re still good and not exposed but I can’t stop obsessing getting confirmation from the community. What do you think?
 
Kodak films have a sealed light-tight inner bag, plus a 3-part outer clamshell box, so are well protected. But in the past, I've seen some EU film sheet film packaging which is poorly protected. Still, that's seems a bit aggressive for TSA in my own experience. Perhaps they were on high alert for some reason, or were minus more experienced personnel at the time.
 
The 90 degree angles are the light’s enemy. Unless they’re shining a flashlight all up in there I suspect you are ok. Still not a great feeling though.
 
If your film wasn’t in a lightproof plastic bag, I’d probably suspect the top sheet but wouldn’t worry about the rest. I recently turned the darkroom lights on but I forgot to close up the plastic bag and put it in the box. Fortunately the bag opening was facing away from the light source. The top sheet was significantly fogged, but everything under it had a tiny bit of light beer at the edge. Your case doesn’t sound nearly as bad, so I doubt the lower sheets are affected at all, but out of caution I’d use the top sheet for something unimportant.
 
yea you’re good if the inner bag was folded under
 
I agree with everyone else in that you should be fine.
Back in the day, when I’d load a whole box of film (Kodak) into holders. The box got fully opened in the light and set aside with just the bare, sealed inner envelope readied to tear open in the dark for loading.

These days I’ll often take the outer lid off in light as your TSA folks did, and open it the rest of the way in the dark to load a few sheets.
 
The film is most likely good. Enjoy!
 
I’m glad your film is okay! I am planning to fly soon with some 4x5 film so this makes me a little less anxious about doing so haha
 

there is a good chance the film is OK. only using one will tell.
 
That's Great Sand Dunes National Park by the way.
 
It's concerning that TSA was insisting. I have ran into this situation a couple of times.

I have a couple of suggestions for future travelers.
1. Be nice and patient- at all times.
2. Ask for a supervisor
3. If they are still insisting, then just say "you will be damaging my property".
Those are the key words. They know there will be additional paperwork if they proceed since they were warned in advance. It works for me every- in the US.

-Shane Knight

Ps... awesome shots!
 

That's a great advice
 
You are probably safe, but in the future ask for a supervisor so that you can have options for a different handling method or recourse.
 
I've placed the outer box lid on in the wrong direction before with the box that's holding all my shot film. I ended up with light leaks on 1 or 2 of the sheet that were sitting at the bottom of the stack. This being at Burning Man, with all the heat, exercise, and lack of sleep, I always find a way to kill a few sheets or a whole box of film.

If it's inside the inner bag, it's almost certainly fine.
 
I had the same thing happening to me both at Las Vegas (LAS) and at London Heathrow (LHR) with a box of Ilford FP4+, security was adamant they had to open the box regardless of my pleading not to do so. They did, opening all boxes until they got the black plastic bags out, swapped them without opening them (upon my request to not do so) and put them back in.

All film was OK, first sheet included, and the procedure was done twice on the same box so at least for Ilford FP4+ (and similarly packaged film) as long as security is careful not to open or half-open the black bag, I am now fairly confident that nothing is going to happen to the film on such situations.

Best regards,

Vieri
 
The experiences relayed in this thread are really helpful. Thank you all.
 

wow! that's extreme, I feel sorry for your experience
 
amellice said:
wow! that's extreme, I feel sorry for your experience
Click to expand...

Thanks! Happily, no harm done to the film. In my experience traveling with 4x5" film:

USA
Portland: friendly, no problem, swap the outer box;
Las Vegas: friendly enough, open box, swap plastic bags;

EU
Milan LIN: friendly, no problem, swap the outer box;
Rome FCO: friendly, most of the times no problem, swap the outer box; once scanned with (supposedly non-harmful) x-ray;
Keflavik: very friendly, no problem, swap the outer box;
Faroe Islands: moderately friendly, insist on scanning with (supposedly non-harmful) x-ray;
London LHR: friendly, no problem, swap the outer box; once in many passes, on my last trip, I have been asked to open box, swap plastic bags, security still very friendly though;
London LGW: friendly, no problem, swap the outer box;
Glasgow: friendly, insist on scanning with (supposedly non-harmful) x-ray;
Dublin: rude security, insist on scanning with CT-Scan regardless of their knowing it will damage film; they just don't give a damn and treat you very badly, too;
Bilbao: friendly, insist on scanning with (supposedly non-harmful) x-ray;
Madrid: moderately friendly, insist on scanning with CT-Scan;

Hope this helps! Best regards,

Vieri


Moderator's Note: replace typos "swap" with "swab" in the above post - as per @Vieri Bottazzini
 
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