Airport CT scanners

[Mute-on]

I don’t need this level of anxiety when traveling. And I don’t care what other people say regarding certain European and American airports willing to hand check film because you’d never know if you will get that one power hungry asshole that day.

Unfortunately the very reason I finally abandoned my beloved Leica M2, M4 and MP for overseas travel and substituted an M240. I’m still in mourning at the loss of the film photography experience that made my overseas trips with family that bit more enjoyable for me.

 

[lamefrog]

UPDATE: As it turns out, roll number 6 has little or no fogging. I took 5 rolls with me on my outbound trip and bought the rest at my destination and I'm developing in chronological order. So Frankfurt may not be the culprit after all. It doesn't make sense because I go through the Nice airport regularly, and although they will not hand-check, I've never noticed any degradation. Perhaps it's the combination of both scanners.

I would be very interested to see a couple of pictures.

The negatives are dense. The image retrieved by the film scanner is low-contrast and grainy.



Below:
Left = normal negative
Right = fogged, from this trip

 

[valdas]

UPDATE: As it turns out, roll number 6 has little or no fogging. I took 5 rolls with me on my outbound trip and bought the rest at my destination and I'm developing in chronological order. So Frankfurt may not be the culprit after all. It doesn't make sense because I go through the Nice airport regularly, and although they will not hand-check, I've never noticed any degradation. Perhaps it's the combination of both scanners.




The negatives are dense. The image retrieved by the film scanner is low-contrast and grainy.

View attachment 4877812

Below:
Left = normal negative
Right = fogged, from this trip

View attachment 4877817



View attachment 4877820

My experience is that regular x-ray has negligible impact which is hard to notice, so, it must be CT scanner. It would be strange that they deny handcheck for CT type machine.

 

[Coldkennels]

UPDATE: As it turns out, roll number 6 has little or no fogging. I took 5 rolls with me on my outbound trip and bought the rest at my destination and I'm developing in chronological order. So Frankfurt may not be the culprit after all. It doesn't make sense because I go through the Nice airport regularly, and although they will not hand-check, I've never noticed any degradation. Perhaps it's the combination of both scanners.




The negatives are dense. The image retrieved by the film scanner is low-contrast and grainy.

View attachment 4877812

Below:
Left = normal negative
Right = fogged, from this trip

View attachment 4877817



View attachment 4877820

...is there a chance the film on the right is underfixed? I've had rolls come out exactly like that when the fixer has gone bad. Refixing clears it right up.

Of course, it could just be toasted by the scanner, but it's worth a go.

 

[Coldkennels]

My summer of travel is now over, so here's the updates from airports I've been to this year:

Heathrow, Terminal 2: Still using old X-ray machines (I think). Took the film aside without question or complaint and actually hand-checked it. A bag full of FILCAs raised questions about why they were so heavy, but otherwise fine.
Heathrow, Terminal 5: CT scanners in place, absolutely no issue with film being taken aside... but they immediately ran it through a small x-ray machine for things that can't go through the CT scanner.
Berlin, Terminal 1: CT scanners in place, large signs telling people to ask for a hand-check. Big improvement over previous years. No questions or complaints from staff. In previous years, airport police actually got involved; nothing like that this time.
Copenhagen, Terminal 3: I actually don't remember much about this one - which scanners were being used - but still had a hand-check.

Overall, people seem much more responsive for hand checking film than they did just two or three years ago. The new scanners and new training is probably the biggest reason why. Still worth arriving a bit earlier, having the film bagged separately, and being polite always helps.

As an aside, the one time I've ever had a real issue at airport security was in Berlin a couple of years ago... my bag got pulled aside and fully searched. The reason? They thought a sizeable flash bracket was a gun when they saw it on the X-ray. Eventually all the staff were laughing about it, but it was tense for a second!

 

[lamefrog]

...is there a chance the film on the right is underfixed? I've had rolls come out exactly like that when the fixer has gone bad. Refixing clears it right up.

Of course, it could just be toasted by the scanner, but it's worth a go.

A valid and welcome suggestion, thanks, but I'm sure that's not the case here .

 

[Tuna]

FYI - recently travelled overseas out of Dulles in Washington DC and they readily hand checked my film - looked like they expected that to be a viable option they were ready for.

A few months ago I flew out of Laguardia in NYC and they had a box labeled for hand checked items where, presumably, you placed those items in the box and they would be hand checked.