Avoiding X-Ray scanners with film?

For Alaska, I was going to take my Nikon N80 film camera along with some rolls of Kodak Ektar 100 and some BW films in 100 and 400 speeds. It's mostly as a learning experience and a bit of an experiment - I've seen some amazing landscapes with Ektar but wanted to see for myself. Plus, you know, film! I love my D750 (my wife let me get it in part for this trip). It's an AMAZING camera but it's so good the photos can almost come out as sterile. At worst, it could also be a convenient way to shot with two lenses quickly.

I was mostly worried about getting past the TSA (who will apparently hand-inspect your film if you ask) and at the initial cruise port. But I realized this morning that they run things through a scanner every-time to board the ship (or at least do in the Carribbean) and that could be problematic. I might not take my film camera to every port but thought I would for a few.

Guessing Carnival doesn't care about your film nearly as much as the TSA so are there any tips on that? Should I just ask and hope? I know typically for 100 speed film it's not a problem at least up to 5 passes through but it would suck to have film ruined having traveled all the way up there or worst to come away with wrong impressions of how Ektar and the various black and whites behave due to the X-rays skewing the results.

I did think about mailing the film back instead but I assume that's not a guarantee and is a bit of a hassle.

When i used roll films we always used a leadbag for them. Not sure if these are still around in digital times. But you should try to get a lead-lined bag at a photoshop. These should be okay for the scan up on boarding. Read on the Kodak page, that these scanners have much lower level of x-ray.

But for sure mailing them back might be more safe.

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Yep you can still find them! But I wasn't sure how to play that. I'd rather they not scan the film at all. But if I put them in a lead bag and they pull it out because they can't see inside, they may scan the film yet again. I read up on it a bit (including the Kodak page on it yep). In looking around other photography forums, most folks weren't affected by it but a few mentioned their film getting ruined after even 1 scan.

I would think if you then show them the films like at the TSA and do a hand check it should be okay.... but of course you can check with the line before about their policy on such matters.

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Having traveled a lot with film, slow film should not be a problem. I've sent 800ASA Fuji through multiple times with out a problem. I tried to limit passes through by using it up before the end of the cruise and used mailers direct to my lab. If you do your own processing mail it to yourself.

Avoid putting any film in your checked luggage it will be ruined.

Your D750 will give you so much better images than that dust collector. Consider concentrating on D750 for best results.

framer

Anything under 800ASA should not be an issue going through the scanners, especially on the ship pas those are low level anyway.

Got back so I thought I would share my findings. I have only developed a roll of Ilford Delta 400 though I believe it did get run through an x-ray machine once. I had not discernible fogging so I expect the same will be true for the color film. I developed the BW film myself but I'll be sending the color film to a lab and, as such, I won't know about it's fate for a little while yet.

The TSA had no problem manually scanning film. I was simply polite and I'm sure being in the TSA Pre-Check line helped there. I was able to get a hand check when boarding the ship no problem, but, unsurprisingly, the ship's staff itself was less than helpful at ports. Thus a few rolls ended up going through.

However, I found out, ahem, somehow, that the ship metal detectors were set to a low sensitivity such that I figured out I could have just walked through the scanners with the film in my pockets...if I were to do that *cough*. Sounds funny having to "smuggle" approved items on board but there ya go. Worth a shot - at the worst case you get hit by the metal detector and act like you forgot to take the film out of your pocket, I guess.

If film continues to make a comeback maybe it will become slightly more commonplace at least among cruises where folks take lots of camera gear (e.g. Alaska). My guess is there were probably very few folks on board my ship that took film to shoot. I may have been the only one, who knows :)

And yes, I definitely took my D750 and ended up with amazing shots. But I didn't bring the film camera expecting it to beat a 750 in detail or convenience. That said, my black and whites have noticeably more character and charm than the "black and whites" I made digitally so far. So there's something to be said for that and, as such, hopefully I got some good shots on the color films too. My suspicion is any photos that end up on my wall will probably come form the 750 but you never know!