How to avoid having your film x-rayed at the airport!

[TheAvatar]

This is your film:


This is your film in a CTX-5000 airport baggage scanner:
:micro:

Don't cook your film!

I created a webpage specifically for travelling photographers to explain how to avoid having their film x-rayed at the airport. It's definately worth a look.

http://home.kc.rr.com/aaronphoto/xray.html

Under the Code of Federal Regulations, film doesn't have to be x-rayed in US airports! It does not matter what speed it is. It can all be hand checked if you like. Print out the regulations (49CFR1544.211(e)(4) to show the screeners! There is too much information on my page to put here. There are links to all the relevant regulations for printing along with an explanation of the federal structure and tips to make things go easier. It needs a bit of an update... basically just adding that you should always carry your cameras unloaded. Despite what the law says, it drives the screeners insane if you try and push a camera past them without putting it through the X-ray machine. Shoot off the roll or hit the midroll rewind, especially if your gear doesn't look super professional.

http://home.kc.rr.com/aaronphoto/xray.html

 

[SpunkyTheMonkey]

my $0.02:

lead bags are a complete waste of time. the machine operator simply cranks up the power until they can see through the bag.

you're right about always having it in your carry on. hold baggage gets hit with a lot more radiation, but assuming it's always in your carry on:

modern machines don't harm film. i've seen enough articles about this by professionals who take film up to iso 3200 through machines up to a dozen times in the course of a trip to know this is fine. it gets written about in photography mags on a regular basis. i've had iso 3200 film go through up to 4 xrays without any problem. the latest estimates i've seen reckon you'd need to push iso 3200 through a carry on scanner more than about 15 times before you're likely to hurt it.

old machines are a problem (you're unlikely to encounter one that old unless you are travelling to a poor country) but all you have to do is ask for a hand inspection and you'll generally get one.

 

[blacknet]

SpunkyTheMonkey,

A little background. TheAvatar is a nuclear engineering student I believe he knows what he's talking about on this one. Also you don't know if the airport has a new or old machine when you go thru.

Ed

 

[TheAvatar]

lead bags are a complete waste of time. the machine operator simply cranks up the power until they can see through the bag.

This is an bit of misinformation that has been passing around the internet for some time. All carry on luggage scanners in the USA can not have their power "cranked up." In the USA and most foreign countries, there are government limits established for the dose rate and/or the dose limit on a single pass (1mR in the US I do recall). The machines are supposed to be adjusted to that limit but they might be out of adjustment. However, the intensity cannot be altered by the operator if he sees a black blob. The dose could be higher if the operator leaves the X-Ray on and doesn't move the conveyor belt, however, this will not help the operator see through the bag. Only the new high power CTX5xxx series scanners have variable power and these devices are only used to scan checked luggage and in special inspections of carry on luggage and you should never have your film run through them for any reason. The high power mode allows a 3D X-Ray scan of suspicious objects for easier identification in order to speed up the scanning process by preventing the screeners from having to open every suspicious bag.

As to those studies, I'd have to look at them. Judging from all the studies I have seen, it all depends on their methodology for the expirement and analysis of the results. How they were evaluated among other things. Most are just based on subjective evaluation of prints rather than densitometry of negatives. The most obvious effect is an increase in base + fog once certain conditions are met. Exposed film is usually more vulnerable to general fogging. This may be OK for most people. Further more, the age of the film should also make it more succeptable to as it will have recieved a dose of cosmic radiation the size of which depends on the films age. It is worth noting that film receives more radiation flying than on the ground because of decreased atmospheric shielding. The same thing goes for living at 5000ft vs sea level.

Taking this information into account along with the fact that all doses are cumulative, you must consider that perhaps a scanner dose alone might not produce noticable effects, nor a single flight, but the two combined (however many times) might create a noticable effect because the cumulative dose would be larger.

The nuclear industry operates on the philosophy of ALARA: As Low As Reasonable Allowable. (When an exposure is required, safety protocol calls for, among other things, maximizing the distance from the radiation, minimizing the time of exposure, and maximizing the shielding.) This means no unnecessary exposures if possible. You could have your film x-rayed repeatedly if you asked them to. It is not necessary to have your film x-rayed at all! Minimal effort. So why would you have your film x-rayed? It's just plain silly to do so.

 

[SpunkyTheMonkey]

no offenced intended to TheAvatar at all...but if you've spent any length of time playing with cameras you'll have seen this discussion many times before. if i have a choice between listening to a nuclear engineering student or a travel photographer who's been dragging film through carry on scanners for years, i'm afraid i'm going to go with the photographer.

as far as the age of the machines go, if your sticking to 1st world countries you won't have a problem. again this comes from very experienced pros.

i didn't mean to sound dismissive and i'm sure TA knows more about radiation than anyone else on the board but this discussion really has been done to death, elsewhere if not here.

the way things work in theory are all very well (and i have no doubt TA is right in theory) but if half a dozen scans don't worry a pro who's films could be supporting him for the next six months, and who's negs or trannies are going to be subjected to MUCH closer scrutiny than most of ours ever will, that's good enough for me. if you disagree that's fine. ask for a visual inspection.

 

[TheAvatar]

STM, This post came out much more aggressive than I intended, maybe because it's 4:13AM and I drove all day long. Try to ignore such tone.

1. Food for thought: If carry on X-ray exposure doesn't matter, why are you allowed hand inspections? The government just created the TSA and moved and altered the CFRs. It could have easily been removed.

2. If you have been hearing that machines can be cranked up to see through the lead bags, which was incorrect, maybe you should reconsider some of the other more anecdotal stuff you have heard from pros.

3. There are lots of pros who demand hand checks. Many do this because they have had experiences with film fog that they blame on X-Ray machines.

4. Many Pros simply avoid X-rays and hand checks by buying/developing their film on site or having it shipped to and from the site.

5. I've spent a goodly amount of time with photography. It is a source of income for me. I don't let them X-Ray my stuff if I can help it.

6. I hear a lot of attempts to dismiss proven science as "just theory." A lot of little doses make one big dose, though the relationship may not be totally linear for film. Thats not theory. That is fact. That's the very principal of how exposing film works!!!!! Intensity of visible radiation the film is exposed to * time of exposure * sensitivity of the film ~ exposure values. Intensity of ionizing radiation film is exposed to * time of exposure * sensitivity of the film ~ exposure effects from ionizing radiation. That is not theory, that is the way things work. You want to try and explain the theory as irrelevant because of the amounts of radiation involved? Background radiation that would effect film is very weak in intensity, much more 30000 times weaker than what is found inside a checked bag scanner, but you and film are constantly exposed to background. Increase the sensitivity of the film and you increase the effects from exposure by radiation, visible or cosmic. What do you think one of the reasons 3200ASA film (which is not truly 3200ASA film anyways, nor are most films truly their indicated speed, see The Negative, by Ansel Adams) has a shorter shelf life than 100ASA film? What is the only reason your film expires faster if you live at a higher altitude? Cosmic radiation intensity doubles about every 5000 feet (just like UV intensity, which is one of the reasons you need more sunscreen in the mountains). These are working theories that apply to everyday life. Why did Kodak run underground storage tests for TMZ3200 possible production sites? Why? Because this isn't just theory. It is the way the real world works. The difference here is that things can be a little hard to predict exactly in the real world.

7. It all comes down to two things.
A. There are *many* unkowns in this question of travel X-ray exposure effects on film. So...
B. What is acceptable to you individually. That is: What risks are you willing to take with your film considering what effects you think will be perceived based on the exposures you expect your film might receive from all sources? IS your film going to see 4 x

 

[TheAvatar]

:wacko: I guess I'm tired...
Incidently... why is this server reporting a time 30 minutes behind standard 15 deg time zones? Is it located somewhere that does funky 7.5 deg time zones?

Anyway, to give the most extreme examples, is your film partially exposed using a modified zone system, Ilford Delta 3200 that is close to its expiration date, and you are shifting... "pushing to 12500," and the film is going to see 8 X-rays and 8 flights, or do you have some fresh 35mm Fuji RVP Velvia 50ISO you are treating like 40ISO and are going to let your kid use in his point and shoot that is going through one X-ray on a single one way flight.

 

[TheAvatar]

I think this will be the last one for a bit... simply gotta sleep...

1. Engineering :geek:

:grad: is math and scientific theory :read:

applied in real world applications :scuba:

2. You claimed that lead bags are useless because more radiation can be applied to see through them, but then you claimed that the radiation effects were negligable. Shouldn't you have therefor claimed that the lead bags are useless because there is no credible threat for them to protect the film from?

OK... now I am just being a pick... and abusing my smiley privelages... I should probably just shut up.

 

[tnk120184]

Is there any harm to digital cameras or the media cards when going through X-ray baggage checks?

 

[TheAvatar]

If there is a negative effect, it would be through degradation of the circuits in your stuff through cumulative exposure over many trips leading to dead pixels on your CCD/CMOS sensors or problems with the media cards. I don't know... I'll ask some of my people who are more into electronic engineering to see what they know as this is more in their realm. It would probably take many times to cause this damage assuming you got a high power scan from a CTX scanner each time. I personally wouldn't put my digital gear in checked baggage because of theft worries. But then, I have no digital gear. I have not seen any TSA or FAA warnings about X-ray danger to digital media, but that doesn't always mean a lot. I do know carry on scanners won't do anything bad to electronics because the dose and dose/rate are so low.

I have heard that if you walk through a metal detector portal with CF cards and they use their wands, the induced magnetic field could corrupt some data, but that doesn't sound like it is right to me. I don't know what the metal detectors would do to a microdrive.