Originally Posted by Loren Pechtel

I've carried a D80 with good sized lens through security many times. Only once has it drawn inspection and that was in China--and the culprit was a box of batteries for the flash, not the camera itself. I have also carried a laptop on every flight since the early part of this millennium. I can't recall it ever drawing a TSA search, even with the various bits of bric-a-brack that stay in the bag.

In the pre-TSA era I have had my SLR looked at and she thought she had found something because she couldn't see anything through the viewfinder--how she could possibly not know that you're not going to see anything without the lens attached I don't know. I also had various hassles with film, I wouldn't be surprised if they were retaliatory for asking for hand inspection. It was obvious the people had no idea of how radiation actually works: They felt that since I wasn't carrying ASA 800 it was safe--never mind that the minimum of 3 exposures per trip drops the safely limit to ASA 266 and I always carried some ASA 400. I was also expected to boot my laptop once--something I could just barely do as the battery was in terrible shape. (I knew that when I left but I only needed it for plugged-in use so I didn't care.)