X-rayed my film on accident

[kipkeston]

Greetings. I got back from a trip, developed 18 rolls of film and felt like something was missing. I discovered I left one roll in a jacket that was packed in my suitcase. Meaning it was seriously x-rayed in the luggage. Some photos have more obvious problems than others.

This is the worst I've seen it

And this is the best I've seen it yet

Fortunately it was only one roll. Has anyone else done this?

 

[brachal]

Film should be carried on. The regular security scanner is not supposed to affect anything slower than 1600; you have to ask for a hand inspection for 1600 and faster. I have no idea what the checked baggage scanners might do. What speed was your film?

 

[kipkeston]

Ah right, this was normal tri-x 400. It was an accident that one roll was left in luggage. It's all carried on otherwise.

 

[jbf]

Well since it is black and white it can be saved pretty easily with some basic photoshop knowledge. Just use some adjustment layers and a little masking work and no one should be able to tell the difference.

 

[SolaresLarrave]

I ran a T-Max ISO 3200 through a scanner and nothing happened... but you left this one in a bag and still, very little happened. Consider yourself pretty lucky! 🙂

 

[JonR]

I was told when asking a Supervisor working for an airline that very roughly the amount of "xray effect" is about 100 times for the luggage compared with what is used for carry on stuff.... reason being that the bags are scanned many at a time and being fully packed etc you need that to be effective.... Jon

 

[Leigh Youdale]

I've had far worse from the checked luggage scans at Heathrow - almost every frame with diagonal bands across it. Both exposed and unexposed ISO 400 film. Maybe I can rework them in Photoshop but it was disheartening, to say the least. The power of the checked scans is very much higher than the hand luggage scans and almost guaranteed to affect the film first time through.
But consider this - bear in mind that the effect of x-rays on film is cumulative. When they tell you that it's "safe", ask how many times it is safe - they won't be able to tell you, but if you watch how they reverse the conveyor backwards and forwards several times whilst trying to decide what it is they're looking at, and then consider how many times you might have carried that film through on previous trips before actually using it - how much x-ray exposure has it actually received?