Taking film abroad

Traveling with film can be great getting to capture new environments and experimenting with different lighting or even just having fun snapping some holiday shots. However it’s not always as simple as digital as film is highly sensitive to light, temperature and of course X-rays.

The most important thing to know when taking film through the airport is to always keep it in your hand luggage, the x-rays used for suitcase is a lot stronger and will destroy the film.

Taking film through security: ultimately the film should be relatively un effected by the scanners, some people have suggested a small loss in quality of an image but it’s not effected enough to be an issue unless you have an extremely fast iso anything around 2000 upward will need to be checked manually as the scanners will effect the film. But for your standard 100-400 iso films you can leave them in you bag un harmed, I would also recommend not loading your camera till your throughly the airport and ready to start taking photos just incase any one needs to open and check the camera. 

Of course if you are concerned about the film still you can always ask the staff they will check the film manually for you as long as your happy to wait for them to do so. 

So once you’ve made it through the airport and you have your spare rolls of films if your traveling somewhere hotter and more humid make sure to put them either in a room with AC or in a fridge on low but again ultimately for a short period of time your film will be fine and un harmed.

I have some shots here that have been taken on film that has been through airport scanners you can see that they haven’t  been affected. I used Kodak ultramax 400 for these shot and as you can see the photos still have that crisp colour that you’d expect from this film.