Flying with sheet film (4x5") - a report and a question

Hello everyone, since moving to 4x5" film I did fly a lot in Europe and, since it looks like all threads about flying with film concern roll film, I wanted to offer my experience so far and ask a couple of questions as well.

Here's my experience. When I travel, I stay on the road for a long time (2-3 months) and, therefore, I carry a lot of film (about 10 boxes of 4x5" Ilford FP4+). I went through many airports, always asking for hand inspection. Here's my results:

- Rome Fiumicino, Milan Linate, London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Keflavik: passed multiple times from these, no problem getting film hand-checked. Boxes got an explosives' swap and I was good to go.
- Glasgow: passed twice, both times I had to have my boxes go through x-ray. The second time they had CT scans machines in my line, the operator readily accepted it wasn't good for film, but was adamant that he either had to open the box or get the film through x-ray. I went for x-ray.
- Faroe Islands Vagar airport: the operator accepted hand-inspection and handed the boxes over to a colleague who tried to open them!! He definitely had absolutely no idea about what he was handling. Film had to go through x-ray or get opened - I of course went for the latter.

I think that carrying a lot of boxes makes me more "suspicious" than having just one or two; and, while people in threads I found assumes that sheet film would be treated exactly as roll film, I would tend to disagree, out of my experience. I think a roll film would be understood as such, and treated as such, much more readily and easily than a box - and, to be fair, for good reasons, since a box could potentially contain anything.

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This is my experience, now my questions. I will travel extensively in the second half of 2025, and would love to hear from people with experience getting film - better if sheet film - through the following airports:

- Barcelona
- Bilbao
- Madrid
- Portland, PDX
- Las Vegas, LAS (international terminal)

Compiling a sheet-film-specific resource of how world-wide airports deal with our favourite mean of expression would seem useful!

Best regards,

Vieri

Hi Vieri. I stopped traveling with LF quite some time ago but felt the pain over the past 30 years, at least. When the inspectors understand film then it seems like a better experience is possible. It always seemed to me that carrying more film was perceived to be a bigger annoyance to the inspectors because it takes more time. And emphatically insisting that film boxes not be opened, even in small quantities , was perceived as suspicious. One thing I did only once was let them inspect my film outside if my sight. That one time resulted in several rolls of 120 film being unrolled as part of the inspection. Like you, if it was x-Ray or else then I always chose x-Ray.

Hi Vieri,

Thanks for the report. My question is, did you notice any problems with the films after developing?

I wonder if carrying a changing bag would be accepted by security to open and feel the contents of a box of sheet film.

I can't imagine trying to travel with sheet film. Any film for that matter. In US airports you never know what sort will be inspecting things. People don't know what film is. Very dependent on X-ray machines here.

I have also given up on air traveling with film: life is too short for ruined photos from precious trips. If I can, I buy film local and try to develop local.

I fly out of PDX; I’ve never taken sheet film, but the handful of times I’ve gone through with rollfilm they knew what it was and were very reasonable and proactive about hand-checking it. They are all CT now, but I think they’re one of the more film-friendly airports in general.

-NT

I don’t travel with large format, but the introduction of CT has improved the education of the security personnel in my experience.
I find it much easier to get a hand inspection now, even at regular X-ray lines.
I have never experienced denial at a CT scanner, and thinking about it, I don’t recall having been denied it alt all in the past 4 years.

Thank you for your replies, great to hear that PDX is film-friendly! Any news about Las Vegas international?

The main problem with sheet film vs roll film (as far as I read online) seems to be the boxes - where I have not been allowed hand inspections of my film limited to an explosive check, the alternative was opening all the boxes (!), including the unopened, factory-sealed ones, which of course would have ruined the film... when CT scan is the only option, getting hand inspection is sometimes easier, but not so in Glasgow where luckily there still is an old x-ray checkpoint where they scanned my FP4+.

A changing bag would be an idea, but I am not sure security operators would be happy to stick their hands in boxes they don't see - and, I am not sure I would be happy having someone not used to handling sheet film touching - and likely ruining! - my negatives either

As far as the results, a couple of scan passed didn't seem to have damaged the film - the photographs I shared on the forum so far have all been subjected to a couple of scanning, and they look good to me, with no fogging or banding.

Best regards,

Vieri

jeffreyg said:

I wonder if carrying a changing bag would be accepted by security to open and feel the contents of a box of sheet film.

Click to expand...

A number of domestic airports in Australia some years ago were happy to do this with 8x10 film in boxes, and were able to do so without any damage to the film. Typically they just wanted to feel the inner envelope in the box without unsealing it, to verify it was flexible and flat.
I can't really imagine trusting that to happen now, though.

Vieri Bottazzini said:

This is my experience, now my questions. I will travel extensively in the second half of 2025, and would love to hear from people with experience getting film - better if sheet film - through the following airports:

- Barcelona
- Bilbao
- Madrid
- Portland, PDX
- Las Vegas, LAS (international terminal)

Click to expand...

You don't have to worry about Bilbao, they have standard X-Ray hand baggage equipments. I never asked for manual inspection because I know there is no harm to film.

Madrid (Aldolfo Suarez-Barajas) , Barcelona (El Prat) and Palma de Mallorca are for now the Spanish airports equipped with the feared CT scanners.

Within the past year with several inspections going in and out of several countries in the southern hemisphere and back and forth to the US they only made me put it through low level x-ray machines twice, and that was once in Brisbane Australia during a very busy time and Papua New Guinea once on the way in. But it was with roll film. No ill-effects (I mostly shoot medium speed film). The majority of the time they'll do a hand check when I request it. Haven't traveled with sheet film in a long time.

They never insisted on the x-ray in South America flying in and out of Chile this past January-February. Going from Argentina to Chile overland at a border crossing (not flying) they x-rayed my luggage, but not my film.