Is xray screening safe or not?

<p>I've heard so many views from people on the safety or otherwise of negative and slide film passing through airport xray screening. Of course, all the machines say "film safe" and airport security never fails to draw my attention to this. Fortunately, in all my travels so far I've managed to rave and rant and get my way for a manual check to be done, but this is becoming increasingly difficult as airport security officials, particularly in my home country, India, take great pleasure in making you squirm and beg and plead.<br>

So the question really is, ÏS IT SAFE? Has anyone had personal experience of photo film being ru ined by xray machines at airports? I am very interested to hear from you</p>

<p>A generalization: the x-ray screening used for carry-on baggage is safe for ordinary film provided the number of 'passes' is reasonably limited.</p>

<p>Possible exception one: in some countries, and at some smaller airports, there may be a concern for the quality of maintenance provided on the x-ray machines. It is possible that older machines that are not being maintained to current standards could produce stronger x-rays that could damage film.</p>

<p>Possible exception two: any generalization is subject to occasional failure, and if you ask enough, you will almost certainly find someone who has had an unfortunate experience with x-ray screening. I have not had a problem, and that leads me to suspect that the relative frequency of problems is relatively small, but obviously, the consequences can be devastating.</p>

I usually use ISO 100 film and have had no problems with 3 scans before exposure and 3 more on the return trip.

<p>This has been discussed repeatedly on this forum, but not recently, so I'll repeat stuff I've written before. </p>

 

<ol>

<li>The x-ray scanners for <b>checked</b> baggage at some airports can destroy your images.</li>

<li>The x-ray scanners for <b>carry on</b> baggage at nearly all airports are safe.</li>

</ol>

<p>To put this in perspective, the carry on scanners in the US are limited to 1 mR exposure for each scan. Background radiation ranges from 50 to 200 mR per year. 70 mR per year is a good average for the places where most of us live. This means that 35 mR is roughly equivalent to 6 months of exposure to background radiation. If you throw out high speed film when it still has 18 months left before expiration because it is too grainy, then you you should limit the number of airport scans to 35.</p>

<p>I have reviewed many radiation exposure tests on various photographic products. I put film through airport carry on scanners without concern.</p>

<p>I've read a couple claims of damage, but I have yet to see evidence of damage from carry on scanners. </p>

<p>And to add to what Ron said, and before anyone starts talking about operators of hand luggage scans being able to turn up the power, I'll also repeat stuff I've written before;</p>

<p>Hand carry on x-ray scanner units perform a single scan with most machines today being dual-energy type scanners. Dual energy type scanners pass x-rays first through your bags, etc, then through 3 barriers which in turn filter out high, low and pass-through energy. The detection from these 3 filtrations are then compared in the system's computing modules for interpretation and display. Within these scanners the initial power level of the scan beam is usually within the range of 140 to 160 kilovolt peak. The colour changes you see on the screen are merely differing representations of metal, organic and inorganic objects achieved by performing additive and subtractive transformations on the different engergy levels calculated from the filterings at the 3 barriers of a single pass scan - although operators can reverse an object back into the beam for another scan. The scan energy level is set on these machines and cannot be arbitrarily increased by an operator.</p>

 

<p>Although not yet India (although I will pass film in Bangalore, Chennai and New Delhi in 2 weeks), Ive had 400 speed B&W film pass up to 16x through a number of scanners through Asia (including many of the smaller 'old' airports) and the US without any noticeable effect. I travel a lot with film and just don't bother asking for hand inspections anymore and thats even up to 1600 speed film. Never seen a problem yet...</p>

 

<p>For when I take a trip to upstate California in a few months:</p>

<p>Within the US, are you allowed to keep your film separate and pass it through without it being scanned? Or should I buy film in San Fran, shoot it, return to SF and have it processed at a 1-hour photo before departing? Or should I not care about any of this?</p>

<p>After shooting the film, you could mail it to your home before departing.</p>

<p>Enjoy the trip. :)</p>

Or mail it directly to your processor if possible to be mailed back to your home and have some pictures waiting for you when you get home.. Kodachrome could be handled like that from the 60's onward.

<p>I pondered the same question a few years ago when I took some Ilford Delta 3200 through carry on scanners in the US, Canada, London, and Rome. I shot the film at 1600, and even after being x-rayed 5 times in carry on scanners when a hand inspection was refused, I never noticed any effects in the negatives or the prints. </p>

<p>Here's a <a href="../casual-conversations-forum/00Sd4X">recent thread</a> .</p>

<p>So if I mail film, does it get X-ray'ed in the mail?</p>

<p>The damage by carry-on X-ray scanners is measurable, but not of any practical significance.<br>

Shipping services don't X-ray packages. No way they could do that and make a profit, you have to pay humans to examine the results. (There's no Artificial Intelligence that can do that.) Look at home much the "security fee" is on one airplane ticket. Think what would happen to the world economy if shipping rates quadrupled.</p>

<p>I have never had any visible effects attributable to X-ray scanning of carry-on film, and nobody on this forum has ever been able to produce a verifiable example. According to an industry white paper, these X-ray machines increase the fog level by only 1/3rd stop in 100 passes for ISO 400 film.</p>

<p>You don't see any effects on CF cards either.</p>

<p>I may be picking at nits, but I would make a stronger distinction between film and digital. Digital memory cards are not affected at all. Film is affected, but you would have to run it through dozens of times to see any effect.</p>

<p>Thanks all. your responses have been very helpful. I am happy carrying film in my carry on baggage, so now i'm not going to get paranoid about it.</p>