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TSA opened 4x5 outer box. Am I toast?

amellice

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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?
 

DREW WILEY

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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.
 

Franswa

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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.
 

abruzzi

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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.
 

Saganich

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yea you’re good if the inner bag was folded under
 

bdial

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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.
 

Sirius Glass

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The film is most likely good. Enjoy!
 

Daybreak135

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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
 

RalphLambrecht

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there is a good chance the film is OK. only using one will tell.
 

xkaes

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That's Great Sand Dunes National Park by the way.
 

Shane Knight

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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!
 
OP
OP

amellice

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Snohomish, WA
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That's a great advice
 

Sirius Glass

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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.
 
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