Hi Jon,
I'm not sure I understand your worries, but here's an attempt at a reply:
> In a repeat performance of my trip to Norway in August (Royal Wedding) I
am
> off to Amsterdam at the end of this month for more of the same
Ah! Attending Máxima's and Willem Alexander's wedding :)
> So my question is, does anyone have any experience of Airport security
from
> Heathrow to Amsterdam and back again.
[...]
> hand-checked, but is there such a thing for the airports I will be
encountering ?
The only time I've gone from Amsterdam to Heathrow was when I was on my way
to San Francisco, so at Heathrow I didn't have to go through customs,
besides, this was in 1994, so it was quite a while ago.
However.... I have flown to many destinations from Amsterdam (which, of
course, included the round trip as well), and I can't say I've ever had any
issue with the airport security. So far, I've never asked for hand
inspection though, so I'm not positive whether they will or will not do so.
> Will they have the same strength of damaging x-ray machines ?
I believe they use the normal strength X-ray machines. I've had film go
through them in a lead bag, as well as unprotected, and in none of the cases
did I see any damage on a film. The only time I've seen something weird on
one of my rolls of film was when I returned from Japan, all film that was
stored in the lead bag was fine, but the exposed part (about half the roll)
of film that was still in my OM-40 got nackered. The unexposed part was
fine; the results, once developed, looked really weird, the messed up shots
looked "oldish" faded and yellow, whereas the rest was fine... Weird, and I
don't know exactly where/how this happened, perhaps this is when my OM-40
first started light leaking (a year later it had developed a severe light
leak), and that the X-ray then did do a lot of damage to the exposed part of
the film; still, it's strange that pretty much _all_ of the exposed shots
had this damage, and not just the ones that had been most recently taken...
> I plan to take my OM-2n and at least a coupla rolls of film (may even try
> out some slides - never done that before !). Actually, on that thought,
are
> slide films more susceptible ?
Don't know about that, however, by now I've taken vast volumes of slide
(Fuji Provia 100F, Kodak E100VS) and print film (Kodakcolor Gold 100/200
ASA) through those machines, and I've never found any damge, other than the
above mentioned case (which was Gold 200ASA).
> All advice, as usual, greatly appreciated. And please bear in mind, given
that it is
> Amsterdam and I am young (27) I have no desire to p*ss these guys off.
So far, people have always been friendly towards me. I guess if you explain
that these films are for your work as a professional photographer, and if
you ask them kindly if they could hand inspect them, there shouldn't be any
issue. Of course much will depend on the person you ask this too (just like
when checking in overweight luggage at the counter ;) ), but I would expect
that in the worst case they will simply decline. In that case, I would
simply take my chances by having the film go through the X-ray machines, for
if one insists too much at airports one _is_ likely to raise suspicion, and
in that case they might indeed decide to give you a full strip search; if
only to show that one shouldn't mess with airport security. However, I think
this is the same everywhere in the world, and I doubt this will be (much)
more so the case in Amsterdam... Bottom-line: ask them kindly and I don't
expect any issues; insists after them denying this, and you may have a tough
time :)
> They may well be looking for drugs more than explosives, but whatever they
are looking
> for I have no desire to be on the receiving end of a body cavity search !!
(and no, I
> have no intention of bringing anything of THAT nature back either !)
So far, the security at Amsterdam airport has never been suspicious of me,
not even when having made several trips to South America and taking some 13
cannisters of film in a lead bag through the X-ray machine on each of those
trips. They never decided to open one to check for drugs or explosives. Of
course after September 11th things _may_ have changes a little, but I've
flown to Barcelona on September 12th: no panicky security checks (and my
LowePro bag was FULL of film), on the return trip, about a week later,
matters were the same: nothing out of the ordinary: no nasty checks, no
nasty questions, no damaged film.
I think that matters should be o.k. as long as you ask them politely, and do
not insists in case they do not want to cooperate.
Cheers!
Olafo
PS: The alternative Frank mentioned is a very good one: Kleurgamma and
Caprilux are both fine pro-labs, and Amsterdam is small enough to have
enough time and ease to go there and have the stuff developed.
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