Lead bag to protect film from X ray machines?

Threeracers

Threeracers

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Mark
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Does anyone travel with a lead bag for film? I am not sure if modern x ray machines do any harm to film but I am considering one as a precaution after a friends recommendation.

A quick Google on the subject seems to be a unanimous in the advice of hand luggage only for film as the hold baggage is subjected to a stronger scan but thereafter its a bit mixed.

I don't think I have noticed anything but can you be sure? I have a honeymoon in Umbria coming up and expect to take more than normal and for the sake of a couple of quid I am tempted but could they insist they are removed and scanned for security?

Mark
 
I've never had any problems with film when going through airport scanners and I am sure that they wouldn't just ignore them because they are in a lead bag and they couldn't see them!
Think I would rather use my weight allowance on something else.
 
I am sure they would ask for the bag to be opened but I wonder if they would they just look in the bag and see they are films or would they insist they are x rayed to see if the really contain film in each canister.

I have never had hand luggage weighed so not so worried about the weight.

M
 
I haven't ever had a problem. Last time I went through US customs, their advice was the anything high speed be removed and manually inspected. The same was said for exposed film, so I handed over a few canisters and they took all of about 3 minutes looking at them. They didn't X-Ray them, but they did swab the outside for a quick chemical analysis.

A lead bag would be an extreme measure if I am honest with you. I would put them in a clear plastic bag and present them to the security people and explain you are worried about X-Rays
 
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Hand luggage. Simple :)

The only snag I had was coming back from Berlin with about 40 rolls of super cheap pharmacy film. The people operating the scanner asked me if I had bought enough :)
 
Threeracers said:
Does anyone travel with a lead bag for film? I am not sure if modern x ray machines do any harm to film but I am considering one as a precaution after a friends recommendation.

A quick Google on the subject seems to be a unanimous in the advice of hand luggage only for film as the hold baggage is subjected to a stronger scan but thereafter its a bit mixed.

I don't think I have noticed anything but can you be sure? I have a honeymoon in Umbria coming up and expect to take more than normal and for the sake of a couple of quid I am tempted but could they insist they are removed and scanned for security?

Mark
Click to expand...

Pretty much covered in these threads here

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/search.php?searchid=9038251

But the short answer is your film will be fine.
 
Lead lined bags are not recommended these days as they will likely cause the operator to simply increase the power to see through the bag and thus exposing the film to more radiation.

Unless your taking ISO 800 or faster film through, then your safe taking film through the hand luggage scanners and even with that it will take more than 10 passes before any damage is noticeable. Never however put it in the hold luggage as the scanners are much more powerful and will fog the film no matter what type/
 
Thanks all, I have never worried before and flown to Nice, Vienna and Madrid all within the last six months or so without any issues but this one came up in conversation recently and I thought I would ask here.

I tend to not exceed 400 and for this trip I expect most will be 160 anyway.

Cheers

Mark
 
Never had a problem. I requested a hand inspection when travelling out of the US - the TSA officials happily obliged, no problems. But in places where you can't really request a hand inspection of film, I just put it through the machine, and never had any problems.
 
Never had an issue either.

Admittedly always carried exposed film through as hand luggage but had lots of unexposed film pass through the hold luggage scanner with no detrimental effects to any of the rolls.
 
Never had an issue, I carried a lot of Neopan 1600 and Tri-X pushed to 1250 to Asia and back last year and didn't see any damage.
 
From experience, taking films through the airport security does not affect image quality in any way

I always take various 400 speed films on holiday, and have seen no negative affects caused by airport x-rays.
 
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