Airport Scanners - the age old question (finally somewhat settled)

[Christopher Hansen]

I found the airport security folks in many countries refused to hand inspect my film. This has happened to me in Australia, China, and Germany. Luckily, in none of those cases did my film get fogged by the x-ray machine.

[612tom]

A question that I have is, can Rollei Infrared 400 be run through the X-Ray machine? Is there anything about infrared film that makes it more risky to X-Ray? Obviously it's much easier to fog in general.
Just wondering, flying later this week. Thanks for any suggestions.

Can't speak for the Rollei IR, but I have a box of Efke IR that's been following me around a bit for a while with no ill effects.

Here in Oz and NZ all luggage on international flights gets scanned on entry (quarantine) as well as departure, so that doubles up the scans you're going to get.

This particular box of Efke IR was bought in the US and posted to me in Oz, so I dont know if it got scanned in that journey (never know what gets scanned and what doesnt in the post), but with me its done:

MEL-SYD (1)
SYD-BNE (1)
BNE-MEL (1)

MEL-ZQN (1 departure + 1 arrival)
ZQN-WLG (1)
WLG-NPE (1)
NPE-AKL (1)
AKL-MEL (1 departure + 1 arrival)

All just left in hand luggage and sent through the scanners each time - didn't bother requesting a hand inspection at all.

So that's no less than 10 times and it still absolutley fine - one WIP image attached.

I had Provia, Velvia, and Delta100 with me at the same time and it's also all coming out fine.

Hope that helps...

[jloen]

Hey, sounds good. I shot 6 4x5 sheets of Efke IR today, testing for exposure. It's got to be one of the slowest films I've ever used (EI about 1 according to my tests), so perhaps that helps out against X-ray fogging.
Rollei IR is a lot more like normal B&W film, with regrettably weak IR effects, in my experience at least.
Thanks for the post.

[Jim Michael]

The IR films my wife has been experimenting with she typically shoots around ISO 8, but that's with one of those 820nm cutoff filters. Without the filter the film is quite a bit faster, like 200. For x-ray risk mitigation I would use the unfiltered speed. Really, I'm not aware of many choices for the chemicals in the light sensitive layers and effort these days seems to be concentrated on grain shape, so it would seem unlikely you can make an emulsion that is sensitive in the visible region and/or IR, yet insensitive in the higher energy wavelengths. I'd love to hear about an example of one.

[rguinter]

The IR films my wife has been experimenting with she typically shoots around ISO 8, but that's with one of those 820nm cutoff filters. Without the filter the film is quite a bit faster, like 200. For x-ray risk mitigation I would use the unfiltered speed. Really, I'm not aware of many choices for the chemicals in the light sensitive layers and effort these days seems to be concentrated on grain shape, so it would seem unlikely you can make an emulsion that is sensitive in the visible region and/or IR, yet insensitive in the higher energy wavelengths. I'd love to hear about an example of one.

Yes x-rays are much higher energy and much lower wavelength than visible & IR being typically less than 1 nm.

This is about 3 orders of magnitude shorter wavelength than visible which starts around 400 nm.

Admitedly I never did any reading about x-ray films but I'm wondering what might be in their emulsions to make them sensitive way down at those wavelengths.

And conversely, in tune with this thread, I'm wondering too if any of the emulsions we use for visible and IR photos have any significant sensitivity in that range and why that might be so.

Bob G.

[Michael Batchelor]

Yes x-rays are much higher energy and much lower wavelength than visible & IR being typically less than 1 nm.

This is about 3 orders of magnitude shorter wavelength than visible which starts around 400 nm.

Admitedly I never did any reading about x-ray films but I'm wondering what might be in their emulsions to make them sensitive way down at those wavelengths.

And conversely, in tune with this thread, I'm wondering too if any of the emulsions we use for visible and IR photos have any significant sensitivity in that range and why that might be so.

Bob G.

While the X-rays can naturally ionize the halides, most medical X-ray procedures use a special film holder that has a screen which fluoresces in the presence of X-rays and helps expose the film. This cuts the patient dose considerably.

Some screens are blue, and some are green, hence the blue and green X-ray film.

Industrial X-rays, like pipe welds, do not use these screens. In fact, I bought five 8x10 "X-ray film holders" from a guy for twenty bucks a few years ago - yeah, $4/each. They were Fidelity Elites! But to him they were just film holders that didn't fit his jig properly, and he couldn't fathom why I wanted them.

[John NYC]

I don't think there's any reason to believe that without evidence. There is a certain threshold below which film won't respond.

Kodak clearly seems to think so...

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/servi.../tib5201.shtml

"If you're going to be traveling through multiple X-ray examinations (more than 5 times), request a hand search of your carry-on baggage."

[John NYC]

Yesteday when traveling, I had six rolls of unexposed 120 film in my carry-on bags. When my bag was in the machine, the bag just ahead of me was stopped for a "bag check," meaning the operator had to have a supervisor come look at the x-ray. There was no one available for more than five minutes. In the meantime, the operator kept jogging the conveyor belt back and forth looking at the x-ray, zooming in, etc. All the while my own bag was visibly on the screen and being x-rayed, I am guessing continuously for that time since the pictures move smoothly as the belt moves and not in "snapshots."

I had two rolls of Ilford Pan F 50, two rolls of Ilford HP5, one roll of Fuji 400H and one roll of the new Portra 400.

Recently I took some 120 shots in Montreal and a couple of my Portra 400 rolls had some strange brown-grey spots, so now, I am going to test this newly x-ray exposed roll of Porta and see if there are any issues, though it will be a few weeks until I get back in town and can get the film developed.

[GPS]

..

Recently I took some 120 shots in Montreal and a couple of my Portra 400 rolls had some strange brown-grey spots, so now, I am going to test this newly x-ray exposed roll of Porta and see if there are any issues, though it will be a few weeks until I get back in town and can get the film developed.

I guess, the whole of this LF community will be speechless and breathless while waiting...

[Scott Davis]

Thinking of the effect on IR film, I had some Kodak HIE in 35mm that I took with me to Cambodia. I made my level best to get everything hand-inspected on the way there, and made it from DC to New York to Amsterdam to Singapore with hand inspections. Going to Cambodia from Singapore, the security boy insisted on sending my bag through the scanner. Leaving Cambodia, I was stymied by the security boy who couldn't comprehend an unopened box of film and made me open a box and then open the canister inside. The rest of the film went through the scanners there, and then again in Singapore, Amsterdam and New York on the return trip.

Result? No negative impact. So, any IR film available today is going to be even more unaffected by the carry-on scanners because it is not nearly as sensitive as HIE was. If HIE can make it through a Cambodian x-ray machine at a small regional airport, anything else will do fine in most major airports in the developed world.

Checked baggage is an entirely different animal, though - I had some Fuji NPS 160 that I had loaded in my 4x5 holders previously. Not thinking, I put them in my checked suitcase so I didn't have to carry the holders in my carry-on and possibly have to deal with the screener wanting to open them. When I got home and had the film souped, the ones on the bottom of the stack closest to the scanner were badly fogged in a strange pattern.