Shoot Film Co has released a see-through film case for photographers taking their film through airports.
The vinyl cases have been produced in response to growing concern over the effect of new CT scanners on film.
Shoot Film Co’s Mike Padua told Kosmo Foto he was inspired to make the cases after seeing his wife’s see-though case she used to take cosmetics on flights.
“It reminded me of the last time we travelled by airplane and how all the things that airport security might want to check by hand were in a handy, easy to access, clear case – and I thought, ‘I wonder how many rolls of film I can fit in that?’
“Nobody specifically requested this item, it was more born out of my own necessity–and I figured that If I could find something handy, a lot of other people could, too.”
The cases hold up to 12 cassettes of 35mm film and are marked with graphics warning not to be put through CT scanners and to avoid x-rays.
“The rollout of potentially damaging CT scanners did play into my thought process,” Padua told Kosmo Foto. “Very often I’ll see posts on various social media outlets of people asking about air travel with film and the various difficulties they go through, and one tip I see come up here and there is to keep all your film in a clear food storage bag so you can easily pull it out to ask for a hand-inspection, so I wanted to make a more ideal, form-fitted version of that with clear, easy-to-read graphics.
The cases are already on sale at Shoot Film Co’s online shop and cost $5.99 (£5.20/€6). Padua said the first batch of a few hundred have almost sold out and he has had to order another batch.
He said he is using the cases himself – though not for their intended use. “I haven’t been on an airplane since 2019! However, I now use one as my “exposed film” bag to keep out of the way of other gear and unexposed rolls in my bag. I just dump all my exposed film into it and stash it away until it’s developing time.”
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
