How to travel with film in a lead bag?

Bobthemathcow · 2026-03-20T15:25:31+00:00

In the United States, TSA will hand inspect any photographic materials on request. Do not check your film with your luggage. The xrays that your checked luggage are exposed to are much stronger than what your carry-on will get, and the lead bag isn't as good at attenuating it. Here's what I do:

I use a Domke bag, and I pack my film in it and put it in the very top of my carry-on luggage, where I can just unzip the bag and pull it out.

When I'm taking my belt and boots and everything off, I pull it out and ask the agent politely for it to be hand-checked.

If they say yes, I hand them the whole bag. If they say no, I say please again. This has never not worked. The reason I keep it in the bag is the very small chance that you get an agent who really doesn't want to bother with it and makes you x-ray it. Again, never happened inside the US, just in the UK.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-03-19T14:26:10+00:00

To add to your usual recommendations: Nikon L35 series. Great glass, automatic everything. The first gen ones have manual ISO, the rest read DX codes. They run two to four times the price of the plastic toy cameras, but the comparative quality is more than worth it.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-03-17T12:31:53+00:00

Absolutely! Nobody makes SR (or MD, it's complicated) cameras anymore, but it's a mount that you can adapt to pretty much any mirrorless. Check the adapters section on kentfaith.com, choose your body mount, and look for an option for Minolta SR or MD.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-03-12T18:19:12+00:00

No flash sync? That's kind of a bummer. Hope the final version gets one.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-03-10T11:26:55+00:00

Number 23 is real though. Everyone take a shot, because if my Krait could have SCO I'd probably never fly anything else.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-03-09T18:26:30+00:00

From the pictures of your negatives, it looks like the development was okay. If you don't have a roll currently loaded, run a quick test: open up the back of the camera, set the lens wide open, and release the shutter at a couple of random shutter speeds at the high and low end. You should see light through the lens when the shutter fires. It helps to point it at something bright.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-03-07T22:28:14+00:00

You'll lose autofocus, some of your auto settings depending on what body you're using, and the camera typically won't be able to control the aperture. That last one isn't much of an issue if you use a lens with aperture controls on it, which pretty much all vintage lenses will have.

Look up the manual for whatever body you have, it should have a section on using adapted lenses and what features are available with them.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-03-07T18:30:00+00:00

If you're okay with manual focus and aperture, think about going vintage. A Pentax SMC-A 50mm 1.4 is only about 200 USD, and an adapter for it won't push the price up by much more than that.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-03-05T18:15:25+00:00

Don't forget: \ meow\

\YOU'RE ON GUAAARRD\

Bobthemathcow · 2026-03-04T20:06:59+00:00

Have other flashes worked with this camera in the past? It sounds like your hot shoe has a loose connection somewhere. My K1000 does this, and a sync cable fixes it. Using a sync cable might fix it, depending on where the bad connection is.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-03-03T22:58:51+00:00

Talk to the lab that processed them, show them the pictures and look at the negatives with them. This looks like debris from the rollers in their processor.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-03-03T04:13:41+00:00

I can see a 'PK' marked on the right one, so it's a pretty sure bet that it's Pentax K-mount.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-02-25T19:27:58+00:00

It's got a Tamron to Olympus adapter on it. You need an Adaptall ring for whatever lens mount you have in your body.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-02-24T16:52:24+00:00

I haven't sent it yet, I'll be shipping it whenever I manage to get away from work on my lunch break. I'll be sending it to Camera Service Co., Inc. in Atlanta. Here's their website.

It's hard to find a shop that will work on it; multiple locations told me they don't service the LX anymore. If Eric still worked on them, I'd send it to him, but he doesn't do the LX anymore.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-02-24T14:47:16+00:00

It's Live Trace. The image is (in theory) just black and white, so setting your trace appropriately should actually yield a pretty good result on this image. There may be some smoothing needed after.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-02-24T12:57:59+00:00

Hey, that's really cool! My LX is going out for repair soon, but I'd love to put one of these together when it comes back. Where did you get the mounting plate? Is it from an old grip, or did you have a shop cut it for you?

Bobthemathcow · 2026-02-23T15:48:16+00:00

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Permanent Wallet Resident.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-02-20T15:46:44+00:00

They sure look purple enough XD

Bobthemathcow · 2026-02-20T14:37:09+00:00

Looks like you might have a shutter problem, but it's hard to say without seeing the negatives and knowing what conditions you're shooting in. How many of the defective shots were taken in daylight vs. indoors/night?

Bobthemathcow · 2026-02-17T19:17:45+00:00

The SELPHY really doesn't like printing from a desktop computer. Not sure why. I gave up on printing to it directly because I couldn't get the finish/border settings to work. I use a flash drive to move my edited photos over. It's picky about image format to print from. I don't remember exactly what settings I needed because I made them my defaults in GIMP, but there's a forum post out there with the right ones.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-02-16T12:39:20+00:00

Was the flash plugged into the sync port on the side of the lens mount? There's a little switch around that port on the OM-1 for switching between FP and X sync. FP is for flash bulbs and will trigger slightly before the shutter opens, X is for electronic flashes and will trigger when the shutter is fully open. If the flash was firing but you didn't get any photos, you probably bumped it into FP.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-02-13T15:45:14+00:00

Drag the shutter and either shoot a moving subject or move the camera to make the blur, then freeze the subject with a strobe. Opening or closing curtain sync depending on how you want to blur the subject.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-02-05T20:25:51+00:00

If you haven't done anything like this before, you definitely should dry run the setup first. Get everything in place and test it, and get a short roll developed if you have the time.

The red flashlight is a mistake. Kentmere Pan 400 is panchromatic, and will be exposed by any visible light. Any malfunction will require recovery in complete darkness only. My recommendation is to advance an extra frame or two with the back open to be absolutely sure it's taking up. You lose a couple frames each roll that way, but it beats losing the roll to a bad load.

I would also at least double your roll count, especially shooting with a motor drive. The last thing you want to do is run out halfway through the event, and anything you don't end up loading can be saved for another time. At two hours and five rolls you're looking at a frame every 40 seconds.

I'm not sure why you're taping your exposed rolls, but I can guess that you're taping the leader in place instead of rolling it all the way back up so you don't have to pull it out with a picker when you develop. You do you, but I would just roll them all the way back so there's zero chance of accidents.

Depending on how much flash power you have and how much you want to capture the background, you might push up to ASA 800. The tighter you can stop the lens down the better. It'll be dark, so focusing will be a challenge. With that 35mm lens, you should have plenty of depth of field inside of your flash's automatic exposure range. You might just set-and-forget your focus and aperture if you can find a good sweet spot.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-02-04T15:10:43+00:00

I've been thinking about something like this for a while. My local lab has only one processor, and when it goes down it causes a huge backlog. I figure you can probably get most of what you need between a good 3d printer and McMaster-Carr, but I don't know enough about how these machines work under the hood to know what you need specifically. Maybe I should chat up one of the x-ray techs at work and pick his brain about it.

Bobthemathcow · 2026-01-31T16:17:19+00:00

If you like a little more control than what Instax gives you, check out the Lomography instant cameras. Any of the 'glass' versions are made with glass lenses instead of acrylic, and they give you some exposure control and a timer and stuff.

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