X-rays Ruined My Film...

Save the boxes from your 1600 or faster film and use them for traveling, that way they wont have any reason not to do a hand inspection.

I keep the film in the sealed boxes. Why? Because it is easier for TSA et al to figure out what I am carrying. I have been told by supervisors that they rather see the sealed box instead of a foil wrapped package that could be a detonator. So go ahead and make your life harder by taking the film out of the box so the inspectors have a harder time figuring out what you have so you can come back to APUG and bitch about how your are treated by the inspectors. Remember most young people have never seen film nor would they recognize a foil wrapped package as film.

CropDusterMan said:

I remove the film from the boxes and leave it in the foil packs. For the middle east, we had press credentials from Time Inc., which helped but I also had letters explaining what we were requesting in the native language of the country. I had a machine gun pointed at me in Quatar when they tried to grab the bag with 8x10 to xRay and I nicely protested. "F"ing jerks in the middle east...Every country I've been to there. In India, I bribed one security guard to let the 8x10 film boxes through. I even had a dark bag on hand for them to open the boxes if need be. Here in the US, the TSA are douche bags too...trying to do the minimum they can. Before 9-11, I used to fly with exposed 665 negs in Polaroid buckets, then went to small Pelican cases just about the size of a Sony Walkman. Nowadays, I try to buy film where I travel to, and travel with my jobo hand tanks and small amounts of chemical and process on-site before flying home.

Oh how the world of traveling with film has changed in the age of modern terrorism.

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i know people who work for the TSA and i can see why they have trouble. unfortunately their job isn't easy with people up in their face when they are just trying to do their job
i have heard stories, and i have seen obnoxious travellers who both embarrass themselves and everyone else if they are and american who insists on special treatment.
in countries outside the usa they are not obliged to hand inspect film and will put it in the scanner which is good for high speed films ...
unfortunately there are people who try to smuggle bad-stuff onto planes.

Sirius Glass said:

I keep the film in the sealed boxes. Why? Because it is easier for TSA et al to figure out what I am carrying. I have been told by supervisors that they rather see the sealed box instead of a foil wrapped package that could be a detonator. So go ahead and make your life harder by taking the film out of the box so the inspectors have a harder time figuring out what you have so you can come back to APUG and bitch about how your are treated by the inspectors. Remember most young people have never seen film nor would they recognize a foil wrapped package as film.

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I think part of the problem is the variability in what we have been told. There is no consistency because part of their tactics is a lack of predictability. I was told at LAX that film outside of boxes and in clear plastic bags was best. That worked sometimes and other times they wanted to open the foil wrapper on 120 film for visual confirmation. Other times a swabbing for trace detection was their preference. One day I finally wised up and realized that this is all a waste of everyone's time. I still put unboxed film in a clear plastic bag but it goes on the belt and through the machine. Now the only thing I complain about in airport screening lines are the jackasses in front of me who want to discuss their film, water bottles, shoes, etc, etc, etc and their rights.

I happened to have a bit of time before bed to upload these scans from prints.

The first is from the problem roll: the one that was first in my Domke x-ray bag as a part of my carry on while leaving, and coming back, it was in the checked luggage. Printed using VC: 3 1/2

Second image was printed from the better roll that was in the checked luggage both times.
Printed using VC: 2

Third image is an example of a very recent roll of the same film stock; seemingly never to have been in contact with any harmful environments.
Printed using VC: 1

I understand the subject matter and lighting are wildly different on all three. All were 'properly' exposed (similar in density, with image #3 being the densest by
I must admit, upon closer inspection, the grain structure of the 'better' roll is not at smooth as the untouched roll. However, I hope you'll all agree that problem roll is significantly worse than the others.

I understand the subject matter and lighting are wildly different on all three. All were 'properly' exposed (similar in density, with image #3 being the densest by a bit).

Reminding all of you that these are all the exact same film, purchased from the same place, developed N+1 in the same chemicals from the same bottle (each time fresh dilutions of HC-110 'B' with similar agitation), and printed on the same paper using again, the same chemicals for each



Thoughts?

KidA said:

I don't believe checked baggage is always scanned. But this sucks to hear since I put all of my film, excluding the rolls already loaded in my two bodies with me in my carry on - which got hand-checked in the US as I was coming back to Canada, by the way, because I my little Domke bag wouldn't fit the cameras.

One thing to note: the roll of film in which was in my checked luggage both ways, came out significantly better than the problem roll, which was a part of the checked baggage batch on the way home only. I actually only printed one neg from this better roll to see what it looked like enlarged. Huge difference. I also made comparisons from other HP5 negs pushed N+1 in the same developers and same paper; the good roll seems to me untouched. I will print some more negs from the better roll. Perhaps There's something I've missed.

A question regarding film speed: although I've heard different opinions on which speeds are suitable for x-rays, as for guidelines of which speed is 'ok' to get scanned, is it box speed or actual developed speed they're referring to? Would by negs have come out less affected if I had developed for 400?

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ALL CHECKED baggage is scanned by high power X-Ray, always, no exception! DO NOT put film in your checked baggage EVER! You may thank your local terrorist organization for this inconvenience.[emoji19]


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Ummm, I'm seeing issues but they don't look like x-ray issues to me.

I agree with you Brian.

BrianShaw said:

Ummm, I'm seeing issues but they don't look like x-ray issues to me.

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What do these issues seem like to you??

Sirius Glass said:

I agree with you Brian.

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...and you?? What do you think?

It's probably an exposure and/or development issue. If you want less grain and more shadow detail don't push.

Richard S. (rich815) said:

It's probably an exposure and/or development issue. If you want less grain and more shadow detail don't push.

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This.

Plus some composition that I'd do differently (but that's not what you are concerned about, right?)

Printing on hard grade paper will pronounce the appearance of grain (shot 1), printing on soft grade will suppress it (shot 3). Given the circumstances and the material used (35mm HP5 pushed in HC110) the grain looks about "normal" to me in shots 1 & 2. It looks a bit more muted in # 3, which seems to be slightly out of focus (which can also suppress the impression of grain).

I fear this is not what you wanted to hear, but as I have written above, it is less then ideal to load up positives (scans, whether they are scans of negatives or scans of prints) when one wants to analyze what went wrong at the negative stage. You wrote about one of the films having a "significantly less clear base" than the others. This makes me curious, but again, you would have to load up pictures of the actual film strips, the one deemed good next to the one deemed bad, to allow any meaningful comparison or comment to be made.

To illustrate, the last of numerous "X-rays ruined my film"-threads was only about two weeks ago and after much discussion it turned out that the roll in question was underfixed rather than fogged by X-ray. Had the OP shown us pictures of his negatives instead of positive scans right from the start it would have been clear at first glance that the problem was underfixing and not fogging and it would have saved us all a lot of time.

to be honest i can't really see any xray/ radiation damage, i like the work you have posted too !

john

BrianShaw said:

Ummm, I'm seeing issues but they don't look like x-ray issues to me.

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^^^ X-rays and cosmic rays cause 'fogging' and/or loss of contrast, not 'grain enhancement'