Incident at Denver Airport

[ornate_wrasse]

Hi all,

Yesterday I was going through security screening at Denver International Airport before boarding my flight back home to Portland, Oregon.

I had brought three cameras on my trip to Jacksonville, Florida and Denver, Colorado and two of them still had film in them. I had several rolls of exposed film, some of them included priceless shots taken at Rocky Mountain National Park. In addtion to the exposed film, I also had numerous rolls of unexposed film.

I asked for the film/cameras to be hand scanned. The TSA person said to me "Is your film less than 1000 ISO?" I replied that the ISO of the film was less than 1000 ISO. Then he said something that, quite frankly, was shocking to me. He said "If you have the film hand scanned, there is greater likelihood that the film will damaged [I forget the exact word he used, it may not have been "damaged"] than if it goes through the normal screening process" !!!

I think he was just saying this as he saw all the film I needed to have hand scanned and he just didn't want to be bothered. I have had many rolls of film hand scanned at airports and have never had any film be damaged or inadvertently exposed by the hand scanning process.

I'd be curious to find out if anyone has had a similar experience at an airport when they requested their film to be hand scanned.

Ellen

 

[segedi]

I had postive experiences in Cleveland and Toronto with some neopan 1600. Requested a hand check and upon hearing that it was 1600, the agents immediately asked for another agent to look at it. I had 10 rolls and they swiped and ran every roll. No hassle, but Cleveland is a relatively small airport and it wasn't busy at that time. And Toronto, well, isn't TSA.

As far as hand checking being more damaging, that was either misinformation based on their lack of desire to do it, or igmorance. The process, every time I've done it, has involved an agent takign some sort of swab to the containers and then runnign the swabs through some sort of chemical analysis machine. The film canisters themselves are not subject to anything other than that.

 

[raid]

It makes sense to have a back-up digital camera with you when traveling with a film camera. This is what I will do anyways. Better be safe than be sorry.

 

[roboflick]

send it through the carry on scanner and dont worry, Not worth the stress, I've had 3200 iso film through the scanner 5 times without any noticeable fogging,
Nik

 

[Nikon Bob]

Maybe it is as simple as confusing the poor guy by asking for "hand scanning" and not "hand inspection". The former might imply to the TSA person to mean X-ray scanning with a hand held device and the later would mean carefully checking the film canisters by hand and swabbing them for explosive residue.

Bob

 

[ornate_wrasse]

As far as hand checking being more damaging, that was either misinformation based on their lack of desire to do it, or igmorance

Segedi - I could not agree with you more!

@ roboflick - I ended up deciding to send it all through the carry on scanner. A post I read on www.nikonians.org some time ago had results similar to yours. The poster on nikonians had actually done an experiment on one of his trips. He had 1/2 of his film hand checked and the other 1/2 went through the x-ray machine for carry on luggage. He compared the results after he got home and found that none of the film in both groups had been fogged or otherwise damaged.

As for me, we'll see when I develop the b&w film and when I get back the color slide film I'll be sending to Precision Camera. I've got my fingers crossed all the film will be OK. 🙂

Ellen

 

[andredossantos]

Ive always been granted a hand check. Well, once I was denied upon entering Cuba. Countless other times both domestically here in the US and outside the US I have never been refused a hand check.

 

[Thardy]

The few times I carried film I just put it through the scanner for carryon bags. Several years ago I traveled internationally and counted no less than 9 exposures (planes, trains, churches, museums, cruise ship with no ill effects to iso 100 and 400 film. I have no idea what would happen to faster film though.

 

[mathomas]

On my last trip (Denver-->KY round-trip) I just opened up my Domke F-2 in the tray so they could see everything, and let it go through the usual X-Rays. No trouble with any of my film (all 400 and below) on that trip.

 

[Ken Smith]

The process, every time I've done it, has involved an agent takign some sort of swab to the containers and then runnign the swabs through some sort of chemical analysis machine.

This is an Ion scanner - very accurate in detecting "most" explosives through chemical composition. Takes just a minute swab of suspect materiel to get enough of a sample to run a test on. Used them in the desert. The back up system was a bomb dog - when you got an positive indication from both, you knew you were going to have a tough day. No X-rays involved.

 

[Chuck Albertson]

I haven't bothered asking for a hand check in years, especially at DEN---the lines are just too damn long, unless your flight is leaving from the A concourse, in which case the security checkpoint over the skybridge is pretty quick.

 

[Bob Michaels]

BMattock gave or referenced the answers contained in the published literature. There appears to be little controversy. Let us summarize:

1) Will one pass through a current carry-on scanner impact consumer film? yes
2) Will the impact from 1-2 passes for iso 800 or less film be noticeable? no
3) Will the impact be noticeable after 5 or more passes? At sometime yes as the effects are cumulative.
4) Does even the FAA recommend that high speed consumer film, any film that may be x-ray'd more than 5 times or specialty film be hand inspected? yes
5) Does the FAA recommend that you never put any film in checked baggage because of potential for x-ray damage? yes

There are thousands of stories floating around the internet where someone had their film x-ray'd or did some nonscientific tests. These are meaningless.

You do have a right in the US (but not everywhere) to have you film hand inspected. The friendliness of the TSA response varies.

Personally, I never let anyone x-ray my film because I do not want to keep track of how many times each roll has passed through the scanner. And I do not trust the scanners in some foreign countries. But it is a personal choice. If I knew that my iso 400 film had no chance of passing through a US x-ray more than twice, I would not bother.

Hand inspection for me varies from TSA selecting a number of rolls of film, swabbing and analyzing the swab to (most often) a simple visual inspection of the zip loc bag.

Friendliness and persistence is always the key. I never have had film x-rayed but only hand inspected 14 times in Cuba even though the official rules require x-ray. It is just being friendly yet persistent.

 

[filmfan]

It's a pain in the a55 bringing film on the airplane no matter how you go about it: whether you go through the process of having the film hand checked or whether you go through the process of worrying about x-ray damage, it's still all the same hassle to me, so I just have it hand checked to be on the safe side although I used to not bother...

 

[Bob Michaels]

So far the anecdotal evidence here is six with no problems, zero with a problem.

And then there is the scientific evidence from Kodak and the FAA/TSA.

You choose which to base a decision.

 

[ampguy]

good case for using Portra 400 and pushing to 800+ as needed.

 

[DNG]

Aren't there X-ray proof bags you can buy? But, that will require hand inspection anyway...

 

[Thardy]

Dave Butcher gives good concise advice on film and xrays on airlines. The info he gives is from the TSA.

Based on this information many of you should be getting hand inspections of your film.

 

[ornate_wrasse]

Dave Butcher gives good concise advice on film and xrays on airlines. The info he gives is from the TSA.

Based on this information many of you should be getting hand inspections of your film.

According to Dave Butcher, motion picture film should be hand checked. Yikes, I just remembered I had one roll of unexposed Eastman Double X film in my carry on! I wonder if that means that one roll will be damaged. Most of the other film was either 50 or 100 ISO, although one roll was an expired roll of Ektachrome 200.

Ellen

 

[Chuck Albertson]

The airport folks just crank the x-ray output up to allow inspection through the bag. I think a plastic bag is a better solution. If they see the camera gear and the film, they usually make the connection.

No, no, no, no....they don't crank up the x-ray output to see through a bag. They can't, for a lot of industrial safety and other reasons. If they can't see something through a bag or other carrier, they pop it open for a look.

 

[pachuco]

Having traveled around the world and in various not-so-nice places I can say that the X-ray damage myth is generally just that. The priceless images you took should be just fine and if they are not, well... It's just the sad reality for those of you still using film. If I still shot on film I would even gladly pay an extra 5-10 bucks to have it hand checked if given the option. Sadly, that will never happen. I wish you luck!