How many X-ray scannings have you gone through without problems?

[fergus]

June/July 2007 trip, Sydney -> Auckland -> Cook Islands -> Tahiti -> Easter Island -> Santiago -> Buenos Aires -> Salta and return... 14 scans (carry-on) and no film showed any problems.

The damage may well be there, but I didn't see it.

Films astia 100, fortia 50, provia 400, natura 1600.

[Freakscene]

I took Arista Premium 100 and 400 and Delta 3200 through these airports in August-September 2009 and the films got scanned as follows:

Adelaide
Sydney
Johannesburg
Victoria Falls
Johannesburg
Zurich (scanned on arrival)
Zurich
Vienna
Zurich
Hong Kong
Sydney

The negatives look fine to me - but I have not sensitometrically tested the speed or base fog, nor did I shoot and retain a test roll from the batches at home to examine grain size and pattern. I have had medium and slow films scanned a lot more times than this too, without problems.

Marty

[zerobuttons]

Thank you to all who participated so far in this thread. It is nice to hear something other than the usual horror stories - and Barret´s wasn´t one of the usual ones...

[Chuck Albertson]

I've lost track of the number of scans I've put film through on trips. I don't worry about it any more.

[OurManInTangier]

I did eleven flights ( and scans on each one ) in the space of six weeks before returning home and had no issues with any of my Delta 100, TriX and CN400....but then I didn't have any high ISO stuff.

I may have been lucky?

[Dave Wilkinson]

Never had a problem in many years travel ( as carry on board ) I still sometimes take a few films, but now its so much more convenient to us CF cards - on foreign trips.
Dave.

[dexdog]

I did a trip on 2007 where my film got scanned at least 8 times. Twice on the same machine leaving Beijing Airport, because something caught the inspector's eye the first time. No damage to film, mostly Fujicolor 200, but also Fujicolor 1600 and some Kodak 400 CN. No problems with any of the rolls.

[zerobuttons]

Since I´m the thread starter I ought to post my own latest observations:
Travelling in China in May 2010, Copenhagen->Beijing->Xi´an->Guilin->Yangshuo/Hangzhou/Suzhou->Shanghai.

20 pcs. of Kodak Ektar 100 were scanned at least 6 times - a few of them 9 times, 2 pcs. of Fuji Superia 400 were scanned 2 times.
I don´t find any loss of contrast in any of the films.

In China there are X-ray scanners in all kinds of places where you wouldn´t expect to find them in Europe. That is probably worth taking into consideration if you plan on travelling in China with very sensitive film.....

[charjohncarter]

I had some film frosted in Peru. The women scanning was stopped by her co-worker fliting with her while I watched my camera get cooked for 3 minutes.

[craygc]

Most so far is 16x with 400 speed B&W film. This has happened because Ive moved a freezer full of film from Beijing to Bangkok then later to Singapore, all as carry on, as a starting point. Then Ive carried a spare roll and a loaded Fuji Klasse W on business trips without using it. Haven't seen a problem

1. Beijing
2. Shanghai
3. Bangkok (x2)
4. Singapore (4x)
5. Penang (Malaysia)
6. LAX
7. Las Vegas
8. San Fransisco
9. Hong Kong
10. Macau
11. Jakarta (2x)

[Mr. Charlie]

My film hasn't had any problem, but then I've got a 43 pound tumor growing on my neck and I just sprouted a vestigial tail.

[jpberger]

I could be mistaken, but doesn't riding in an airplane expose your film to more x-ray/gamma radiation than the carry on baggage scanner?

Most places out side of north America will not hand inspect film-- they don't have the machines to read nitrate swabs or the extra staff to run it. One issue I ran into in Mexico city was that my backpack with 200 rolls of 35mm looked a lot like a bag of blasting caps or something to the poor woman who was running the customs scanner solo at 5am. The look on her face was something else again -- so make sure you have your film in clear bags and show it to the folks before you stick it in the scanner.

[Rob-F]

My experiences:

Trip A: Tri-X, Delta 400, Delta 100, Plus-X, FP-4

0. St. Louis to Atlanta--hand inspection, doesn't count.
1. Atlanta to Paris. Can't remember if hand inspected or X-rayed.
2. Paris (CDG) to Marseilles. X-rayed.
(We drove back to Paris--no X-rays.)
3. Paris to Helsinki. X-Rayed.
4. Helsinki to Paris. X-rayed.
5. Paris to Atlanta. X-rayed.
6. Atlanta to St. Louis. X-Rayed because we were in a rush.

So, 5 or 6 X-rays exposures, no visible damage.

Trip B:

St. Louis to Houston, forget to get hand inspection; one roll of Delta 3200 was in with the Tri-X. Houston to St. Louis, forgot again!

No visible Damage.

St. Louis to ?: Film in Domke X-ray bag triggered a hand inspection. Return trip: I had put the X-Ray bag packed against the bottom of the bag, where it fit best. It was against the frame and roller parts, and thus was presented edge-on to the X-ray. This did not trigger a hand inspection. The bag may have looked to the X-ray person like it was part of the bag frame or mechanism. Or else they saw what it was and were not concerned with it. No damage.

A museum of Judaism on the right bank in Paris wanted to X-ray my camera bag, a Domke F-5XB. Knowing I was going to exceed the five exposure limit, I asked for and got a hand inspection.

These are the experiences I remember.

The advice of the organization in the link that was provided, the i3??, to limit to five exposures, is consistent with information I found on a Kodak website. Looks like five is a good number to go by.

[Leigh Youdale]

This thread's a bit old now, but this last week I did a trip in Oz and while at security at Sydney Domestic Airport found myself standing near a Security Supervisor. Although this might not hold true for all airports I asked him if they could adjust the intensity of the scan for carry on luggage as is often alleged in RFF. He said no, they couldn't. They would do two or three passes if something attracted their attention and if still not satisfied would ask the traveller to open their bags. But he did tell me something I didn't know before. He said some of the machines were up to 20 years old. Technicians from the government department that handles air safety come periodically to calibrate the machines. They, and only they, can adjust the machines. Then he told me that these techies do, on a random basis, tweak the intensity of some of the scanners. They never tell the security staff which ones and it's a strategy to increase the surveillance periodically on random machines so that a careful observer (read "threat") would have difficulty in detecting which were the less sensitive machines over any given time period. How much "extra" they give the scanner, he claimed not to know. FWIW.

[cnphoto]

2008 - Sydney, Singapore, Malaysia, Malaysia, Singapore, Darwin, Sydney

ISO 100-400 slide and B&W film, hand checked 50% of the time - had no issues for the 4 or 5 times they where scanned.

Delta 3200 and Neopan 1600 had 1 or 2 scans (i hand checked except for once or twice on the final leg home - too tired to be bothered at 3AM in the morning) - also, no issues there.

Interesting about scanners and increasing the intensity Leigh.

[stewmander]

Last week, came back from a trip to Chicago, had my ~10 year old 400 fuji film scanned once through carryon X-ray, no problems. Also had a new roll of Fuji Velvia 50 scanned once throguh carryon X-ray also with no problems at all.

[wgerrard]

Just saw this thread... Seven times, including getting picked to be scanned by some kind of agricultural scanner at Dulles. Film was 100 and 400.

[xxloverxx]

Well over 10 times on "film safe" scanners on a cruise, once in London Heathrow where they claimed that it was film safe but there was no sign, once at the beginning of the cruise with an xray in the check-in place that they again claimed was film safe.

Got back to HK, all worried…

…developed the film…

…no problems.

[Leigh Youdale]

I've just posted on a thread here - "Is this due to light leak? ( 1 2)" - in Rangefinder Discussion Forum if anyone is interested to see what a seriously zapped film looks like.

[Chris C]

HP5+
Wellington, Auckland, Bangkok (twice), Kathmandu, Lukla, Kathmandu, Bangkok (twice), Phuket, Bangkok, Auckland.



HP5+
Wellington, Sydney (twice), Bangkok (at least 4 times at various places), Yangon, Bagan, Heho, Yangon (twice), Singapore, Sydney.


Sometimes I think there is a bit of a grain increase compared to rolls I've shot at home, but it seems very scene dependent and it's also pretty minimal.

[srichmond]

I know it's only anecdotal, but i've been all over the place with film checked in and part of hand luggage, and i've never had any problems. this includes iso 800-1600 film. it's just not something i worry about.

[dfoo]

Originally Posted by Ronald M

Baggage x ray is 100 times stronger and is guaranteed to ruin your film.

I accidentally stuck 10 rolls of ERA 100 in my baggage from Shanghai to St. John's Newfoundland (2 baggage xray). Came out fine.

[wgerrard]

Originally Posted by dfoo

I accidentally stuck 10 rolls of ERA 100 in my baggage from Shanghai to St. John's Newfoundland (2 baggage xray). Came out fine.

Luck, I suspect. As I understand it, the machines that scan checked luggage use an entirely different kind of scan than the carry-on scanners, as well as being much stronger.

Many major airports post guidance about film and scanners on their web sites. All that I've seen state that their checked luggage scanners are capable of damaging all film.

[dfoo]

Sure, I don't doubt that and I wouldn't put it on my recommended list. However, it certainly isn't guaranteed to destroy your film

[akremer]

carry on from brisbane-sydney-korea-jfk-toronto-jfk-korea-sydney-brisbane.

With portra 400 and 800 + tmax 400.

no problem.