X-Ray Paranoia - Fact or Fiction follow up poll

X-Ray Paranoia - Fact or Fiction follow up poll

  • Nope I never had or noticed damage from airport X-Ray scans

    Votes: 91 87.5%

  • Yes I have had damage to film in carry on luggage

    Votes: 8 7.7%

  • Yes I have had damage to film in checked in luggage

    Votes: 5 4.8%
  • Total voters
    104
  • Poll closed .
T

tlitody

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As a follow up to original poll

here is the new one with better formatted questions so as no one can be in any doubt about the potential problem of X-Ray film damage or not.

Please just place a vote here. No need to post a message and please do vote if you never had a problems but have passed through airport scanning.
 
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I would choose: I don't take film in carry-on or checked baggage. I imagine some, myself included, opt to get film developed locally.
 
Dear tlitody,

thanks for starting this, I have high hopes for this poll to end all the recurring debate on the subject!
 
~13 scans to my film in one trip. speeds up to 1600. indonesian 3rd world scanners to modern japanese and aussie ones. no problems.
 
Hand luggage always fine...wherever, whenever. Apparently the effect is cumulative but even with ultra fast films you'd have to go through a lot of x-rays.

A couple of rolls in 'checked in' baggage have suffered in the last ten years. My fault. I have always been told that checked in baggage gets a much stronger blast.

Michael
 
This is not pertinent, I know but I haven't flown since 1999 and that was to London. No plans for flying anytime soon, if ever.

Never experienced any problems with the checked-in or carry-on luggage back then. Of course, now I would not hesitate to do a carry-on but I would not check my film or my cameras for obvious reasons.:)

My son worked for Delta for a long time and from an insider's viewpoint, only a fool would check in something valuable.
 
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Last time I was in the US I was surprised to see so many Xray machines not just around airports but at the entrance of many landmarks, so I was quite worried because unlike the airport folks who were completely understanding and hand checked my 30+ rolls, the other people were much less cooperative, however I suspect their machines are much less powerful so even my 1600ISO film was fine after. At the airports I scanned the 100 and the 400ISO through the carry on, but I asked the 1600 to be hand checked and before coming back from the US I developped the 1600 in a local lab to avoid airport headaches, call it paranoia :)

Let's just say I won't be travelling with any 1600 speed film any time soon!
 
I never had damage BUT I never put film in checked in luggage AND a colleague fo mine was silly enough to put his single-use waterproof cameras with hawaiian snorkling shots in the checkin... he got a total mess out of it...
 
I always pick the rolls out and ask specifically to not scan the rolls.
Sometimes it needs an approval from the supervisor, but it eventually works out.
 
Never had problems with carry on. I place the transparent bag with the films in an extra tray just in case the machine would turn up the dose to look through something else in my luggage.
 
It happened once to some rolls of Ilford FP4+ 120 film in my carry on luggage. That was about 6 years ago. I cross-checked on APUG and the web back then and the type of wavy banding I saw on the negs was definitely matching what was indicated on that webpage as indicative of x-ray damage.
 
I always ask for a hand check and surprisingly I've rarely been denied. Even in Colombia, where one has to pass through something like 5 security checkpoints they gladly gave the film a hand check. So, if youre worried, it doesn't hurt to ask!

The one time I've been denied a handcheck, entering and leaving Havana, the film was perfectly fine.
 
Just got back from a holiday, bags got scanned twice, no noticeable issues on any film, although my highest ISO was only 400.
 
I always ask for a hand-check, but am not always successful. My carry on film have been through 5 passes at most. The only time I got some fogging was with one roll of Delta 3200 (after 4 passes). Its expir. date was 6 months prior to that trip (although it had been in a freezer), but I don't know if that had anything to do with the fogging.
 
Some years back, I simply FedEx'ed all my 4x5 Fuji QuickLoad film for FedEx pickup at my destination, so I wouldn't have to deal with it en route.

My concern was that all the QuickLoads were wrapped in foil within the boxes, would therefore light up any X-Ray scan, and if someone demanded a search, some sheets may have been exposed.

Robt.
 
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