Protecting film with xray machines

[Jen80370]

I used this on my trip this month and it was great! York Photo (I think there are other companies too) sends out those postage free mailers where you send away your film to be developed....I got about 20 of those mailers before I left...and as I used a roll of film, I filled out the form and dropped them in the lobby mailbox every morning. I didn't have to worry about bringing the film home...plus it left more room for souveniers. Hope this helps.

Plus the day I got home, a few rolls had already arrived.

 

[jmminarik]

This is one good way to avoid having you film x-rayed. And it is convenient to drop the film into the mail and get it when you get home. Compared to 'normal' film developing, the costs are usually attractive. There are a number of 'mail-order' developing services...some run by the big boys Kodak and Fuji. Others are run strictly as an Internet advertised service. Heck, one doesn't even send you prints until you view the photo's on-line then 'order them'. Anyway, the point is there are a number of services which will allow you to drop a roll into a pre-posted mailer for processing.

HOWEVER

As long as your film is not packed in your checked luggage, you should be ok. Why? Because you can request a hand check of the film. It's part of the federal guidelines. Can it be inconvenient? Yes. But given that I can get film processed cheaper than the mailers, I can get film processed by a human being that I can see and talk with, and that human is unlikely to lose my film 'in the mail', and my photo's are worth my time to protect, for me it's a minor inconvenience. And although the mail is obviously marked as 'film', I don't trust the USPS to NOT irradiate my mail as it could very well go through the area's where they do this.

That all being said, we typically drive to WDW (or most US locations we frequent) and we'll be moving to digital for snapshot photography, it will be a mostly moot point for us.

Hope this helps,
Joe

 

[Limmer]

There are also bags you can buy at your local camera store to protect your film from the x-rays.

 

[Krissalee]

Originally posted by jmminarik
Why? Because you can request a hand check of the film. It's part of the federal guidelines.

Wow! Glad I know now that it is a federal guideline. It may have helped us out the last time we flew.

DH requested our film be hand checked at Newark Airport in March, and they refused, and called over a supervisor. The supervisor told him that they will only hand check 1000 speed or higher film. He also said they can't be bothered to hand check all the film that comes through. He was very rude about it, and would not let DH through unless he put everything through the x-ray machine. This supervisor also tipped off security to check out DH very closely! They searched him thoroughly (wanded him 3 times, patted him down 2 times), had him remove his shoes 5 times to be checked, and questioned him for a few minutes, as well as searched every item in his carry-on before they would let him through. All because he asked to have his film hand checked!

I understand the need for hightened security, but this incident was IMHO rather excessive, as it was stimulated by asking to have film hand checked.

Those mail in film envelopes sure do sound attractive!!!!!!

Krissy

 

[Caldonia]

This isn't really about film, but if you decide to use a digital camera at some point, they are impervious to x-rays.

I really love our digital camera because we can see every shot after we take it to make sure we got what we wanted. The last time we went to Disney we lost about a roll & a half of film to bad exposures or messed up framing. Now with the digital camera we come home with only good pictures. If we mess one up, we delete it on the spot and reshoot it. Then when we get home we sort through them on the computer and upload the ones we want printed to walmart.com, then in a few days stop by our local store and pick up the prints.

Our camera is only a 1.3 megapixel model, but our 4 X 6 prints have been virtually indistinguishable from their 35mm counterparts.

And another bonus, we can fit nearly 250 shots on a single reuseable $25 64MB SmartMedia card.