dwelter

Leaving for Europe this Wednesday. Can I transport film in my luggage? Will it be damaged by the xrays at the airports? Ive heard conflicting views on this. Thanks

Gail

Carry it with you in a ziplock bag and hand it around the metal detectors. Take the film out of their boxes and leave them in their canisters or wrappings. Both my daughter and my husband are professional photographers and this is what they are doing on their trip to Europe this week. This is the safest way. Have a fun trip!

joe t

I have heard conflicting views also. The general wisdom seems to be that the check-in x-rays are much stronger, so better to carry it on. Even the walk-through type machines apparently have some affect, and it is cumulative, ie the more trips through, the greater the fading. Unless you have really fast (high iso) film, should not be too bad, you can always ask them to hand check the film, which they will do in the states, but not always in Europe. If you bring along a couple of rolls of 1600+ iso film, you can plead you have special film which will be damaged, which may help your case. Alternative: use a digital camera. <BR>

Walter

I usually get pulled out of the herd for a Customs talk/x-ray so I always use a lead-lined film bag, see my "Custom Searches" post. Going from Boston-London(LHR)-Athens, my film was 15 rolls of 400 speed in the lead film bag. Going over it was in my carry-on, x-rayed in Boston, x-rayed at LHR, and nabbed in Athens (a woman walked over to me and actually brought me over to the x-ray machine) where it and my checked luggage was x-rayed again. On the return trip I put my film in my checked luggage where I know it was x-rayed at LHR (it had a yellow "Customs Searched" sticker on it when I got it in Boston). At Boston Customs I was again pulled out of the herd and questioned and my luggage was again x-rayed. My film was developed with no problems. The film bag to me is worth it, so I never have to worry about my film. HTH Regards, Walter <BR>

Elizabeth

hi, <BR>On our last trip to Europe I always had the x-ray people check the film and avoided having it passed through the machine. They never seemed to mind. <BR>On on recent trip I decided to just let it go through I had about 12 rolls of 200 speed and it must have passed through at least 6 x-rays machines throughout our journeys (between SFO, LHR, AMS and Wash. Dulles). It brought it home, had it develop at Costco and not a single problem. The pictures turned out great.

Alice

I went to Hungary in 1999. They forced me to put my film through the x-ray machine even though they could clearly see it was 35mm film. No if's and's or but's about it there. My pictures came out somewhat foggy but still o.k. <BR> I made sure this year to have my film in a film bag when I returned there. This year my pictures came out GREAT!!!! Have fun and just relax.

Chris

From what I read recently these lead bags are exactly the problem. For some years many x-ray machines were meant to not damage the films and you could on most bigger airports be confident they would not do any harm (never had any problem with my ISO 200 films). But since a while they seem to take another route. The machines are somewhat "dynamic". They will raise the intensity of the x-rays until they can see everything in your bag - up to peneträting lead bags. These are only in business on a few airports by now (don't know which ones) but probably getting bigger in number. So, I would opt to try to bring them through separately, if possible. The article even suggested having your films processed before going back, but this will in most cases not be an option. Hope you bring home brilliant pictures!