X Ray Bags

[Ian Grant]

Yep - and this is the elephant in the room that nobody ever seems to address.

Most overseas mail is checked with exactly the same type of scanners used in airports for carry on baggage. Anything suspect may then go through a more severe scanning process. This is actually what happens with hold baggage as well.

These scanners are used in far more places than some people realize. It's not just when flying, ports, cruise ships, shopping centres, courts etc all use them.

In Peru they scan your baggage when you pass through Customs & Immigration going into the country.

Ian

 

[verney]

Finnish customs office has scanners for X-raying trucks. It's used against smuggling, not sure if mail trucks go through that.

 

[AgX]

Stationary and mobile gamma-/x-ray devices to check whole trucks/containers are common meanwhile.

 

[Keith Pitman]

You can carry 120 and 4x5 film in your pockets and it will not trip the metal detectors. 35mm film is another matter since it is in metal cassettes. I wear "cargo pants" with large pockets on the legs which work well and avoid hassles and delays. Especially good for 4x5 as the security guys want to inspect the inside of the boxes. Frankly, though, in the US, you don't have to worry too much about having your film x-rayed. I've taken film through several passes through the carry-on x-ray machines with no decernible effects.

 

[Ian Grant]

You can carry 120 and 4x5 film in your pockets and it will not trip the metal detectors.

In theory yes, in practice no, they make you take of coats, jackets etc in most airports particularly if the pockets are bulging

But in fact a coat pocket is a good place for film to be scanned as there's no metal objects around it.

My films get scanned so regularly I gave up worrying a log time ago

Ian

 

[PKM-25]

Thought I would revive the thread for reasons of confirming thoughts on X-ray bags. I just had a nice face to face conversation with TSA Admin John Pistole. He confirmed the bags are a bad idea because they will slow down the TSA process as despite notions to the contrary, the TSA officer using the scanning machine can not up the power on the machine so it is a form of a red flag. Hand checking is the best way to go if you are willing to wait a bit and personally that has always served me well, just be pleasant and supportive of the job they are doing.

This goes for checked bags too, X-ray bags are totally obsolete at this point, I am surprised they still made...

 

[kanzlr]

For my last trip I used a Domke bag. I could see the operators screen and the X-Ray DOES see through the bag, although the image was very dark and they could JUST see through. That was ok for them because they saw that they are just rolls of film and the fact that it was as dark as it was suggests to me that it blocks at least a big amount of radiation.

and: forget hand inspection in Europe. I always ask, it was NEVER granted.

 

[ic-racer]

Both last summer and this summer I tested base density of iso 400 film from the same 100ft batch that either sat in a camera at home or went on a continental USA aircraft trip with two trips through the x-ray scanner. There was no difference in base density that I could detect with my densitometer.

 

[kanzlr]

maybe it also depends on the machine in use and for how long they examine your luggage.