X-Ray safe packing

Hello,

 

I want to travel in airline. There is pack of five Fuji ProPlus 100 films available here in the plastic that is black from

inside. I beleive its X-Ray safe. What do you say? Could that be same material which is X-Ray safe? I will be

keeping them in carry on.

 

Regards,

 

Rizwan

I doubt that anything not fairly substantial will stop X rays. On the other hand, I think that film can be exposed to quite a lot of airport-security-level X rays before it is a problem.

Tim: Thanks. I beleive its for prevention for the X-Rays and I remember I have read that in Photo.net.

Tim was correct. The black plastic will not stop any x-rays. You need a thick layer of lead (or something else

equally massive) to stop x-rays. On the other hand, the carry on x-ray machines don't use high intensity x-rays.

Even high speed film can go through a carry on scanner about 25 times before you will see problems.

 

The x-ray scanners for checked baggage at some airports are another matter. They can destroy images on film. I've

seen these results and they are not pretty.

Ron: Thanks, I have no intention to keep the films in the main luggage. I will put them in hand carry. Will that be safe for the films?

I took Elite Chrome 100 through 6 carryon inspections with no problems.

There will be no relevant change in the performance of the film. Measurable, but not relevant.

 

Note that one trip through the checked baggage X-ray machine is about the same dose of X-rays the film will also get from flying on the plane with you. At 35,000 feet over the earth, there's a lot more cosmic rays than at sea level.

"Even high speed film can go through a carry on scanner about 25 times before you will see problems."

 

This is exactly correct and and an accurate summary of the industry association (I3C) study done quite a while ago for the carry-on baggage check machines. To clarify... "high speed" in that study was 400 ASA, and the damage was measurable but not necessarily noticable.

 

Don't waste time with lead bags, etc... in my experience if the airport security folks see something in a bag that their scanner "cannot see through", they will open the bag and then xray the contents. Net result... you've just spend two times as long in the security line as you (and the folks behind you in queue) should have. Long-gone are the days of courteous hand checks!

You can request that the TSA screeners at the airport hand check your film. They don't like to do it, but they will. Carry all your film, both unexposed and exposed, in a plastic bag, without the plastic film canisters. The canisters just slow things down, as they will take each roll out of the canister for inspection.

 

Don't leave any film in your camera. Remove it and have it hand inspected along with all your other film.

 

I've never had a TSA screener refuse to hand inspect my film. I have, however, had a couple of screeners at cruise ship piers simply flat out refuse and insist that EVERYTHING go through the x-ray machine. They don't work for TSA, they usually work for the local port authority or a contractor to the port authority.

 

Paul Noble

I have had light but noticable x-ray damage on 400 speed film with about 6 exposures to the carry-on x-ray machine. Only once, but isn't that enough?

 

Bill Pearce

Bill,

 

How do you know it was x-ray damage? What were the symptoms? Was there a pattern?