Travel With Film: Are Airport Security X-Ray and CT Scanners Safe? The ULTIMATE Test!
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2024
- Do airport security scanners damage film? Is it true, that X-ray scanners are safe for films up to 1600ISO? The new CT (computer tomography) security scanners - do they ruin film at any ISO? Is 35mm film safer to take through scanners than 120? Do X-ray protective bags work? Should we insist on hand-checking, or stop being paranoid?
With this video, I am trying to answer those questions, to have the peace of mind when traveling with film.
Find all the images from the video on my website: linabessonova.photography/videos
Instagram: / linabessonova.photography
Huge THANK YOU to Fotoimpex for supporting this experiment for our analog community!
Fotoimpex is one of Europe's biggest photo retailers and the ADOX official distributor. Shipping worldwide!
fotoimpex.com
/ fotoimpex
Chemistry used:
• www.fotoimpex.com/chemistry/a...
• www.fotoimpex.com/chemistry/a...
• www.fotoimpex.com/chemistry/a...
Protective bags:
www.fotoimpex.com/films/domke...
Film:
ADOX HR-50: www.fotoimpex.com/films/adox-...
ADOX CHS 100II: www.fotoimpex.com/films/adox-...
Cinestill 50D: www.fotoimpex.com/films/cines...
Cinestill 800T: www.fotoimpex.com/films/cines...
CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
00:47 - Why I decided to test airport scanners for film safety
03:44 - Going to the Fotoimpex Berlin store and getting A LOT of film
05:25 - 15 hours of exposing all the rolls
09:21 - Berlin Brandenburg Airport and passing through the X-ray scanners 6 times
14:01 - Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and the CT scanners
17:25 - Processing black and white film
20:17 - Conclusion: film damage from X-ray and CT scanners shown and discussed
I love the premise of this video. I also thought the lead lined box would work better than it did. Good point about the safety for the security staff. Dosimeters make sense.
i was just thinking destin would love this video ahaha
I'm flying out in a few weeks -- 3 connecting flights. I am asking for hand screening in advance from airports. Let's see if that is possible. The first airport has already been contacted. If everybody did this, we could get the message to airports. Maybe ....
Kudos on your investigative and thorough work! If exposure to airport scanners result in foggy and wave effects in film, what on Earth does it do to our body. Governments the world over are allowing more and more powerful forms of ionising radiation (cancer-causing) technologies to screen travellers. If you are a frequent flyer, how many airport scans can your body take? Be careful folks.
Thanks! I'm thinking of a 3mm steel container + lead... but then it's already becoming pure experimentation, and totally unrealistic.
I'm not a scientist so someone correct me if I'm wrong but from the wikipedia article on Faraday cages "To a large degree, however, they shield the interior from external electromagnetic radiation if the conductor is thick enough and any holes are significantly smaller than the wavelength of the radiation." and x-ray wavelengths can be as small as 0.03nm and a very cursory search shows the distance between lead atoms to be somewhere between 0.175-0.3nm so it would still be enough for x ray radiation to get through. (this would be pure lead, not the lead rubber used in the video, so presumably even more radiation could get through) Although this would maybe save your film if you accidentally put it in a microwave! 😂
The incredible amount of money, labor and time you took to make this experiment is beyond commendable. This video should have more likes by the film community. My personal experience is that flying in North America, the security agents have never had an issue hand checking my film regardless of the ISO but knowing this information for European travel I'd likely just send my rolls to be developed by a lab there and not bring any with me and purchase locally as well.
You've done what others have only envisioned in their nightmares. Your data is certainly the first that any of us has seen that is truly useful, and is based on REAL airport experience. Thank you!!!
Thank you for the support! I was so fed up with being in the dark about those scanners...
I didn’t get a notification on this video😢. Great resource for the traveling film photographer.
Hi everyone! I am currently flying (with film :) :), and I will publish the website page with the images a couple of hours after the video goes live!
Can’t wait to see the results!
What a tremendous undertaking. I can't imagine subjecting myself to scanning from Airport security that many times. And you did that all just for us. I can't imagine doing that with American TSA.
From what I’ve heard, they are extremely good about it actually. My experience was good as well. Told them I had film, and that I wanted a hand check. They told me the scanner shouldn’t affect film up to 800 iso, but I politely told them that I’d rather be safe then sorry. They swabbed the rolls, gave me back my film, and looked confused as to why I used film lol
I'm so glad my home airport is SFO, a private security firm and staff that can act like real people. Literally never an issue and often interest!
@@mcb187 you're totally lucky. Being the nicest person won't help you in Geneva, Nice or Paris...
I wonder if they would catch me :D ALthough I wasn't doing anything illegal
I've never had any problems with American airports, at least in Florida. They all seemed well trained to take care of film and were very understanding when I asked to get my film hand checked. European airports on the other hand...
Thank you for doing this for the film community, Lina!
most welcome!
Hi Lina, so i work in airport security, at least in Copenhagen Airport our scanners are measured to be okay for film under 800 ISO, anyone can ask for their rolls to be taken around our scanners, not depending on ISO.
We’re currently testing out CT scanners, but we do have signs with equiment and film where it says to ask staff to take it around the scanner.
I’ve taken film through many times over many years, as far as i’ve seen, there are no noticeable differences on my results.
I took the excact same photos on 2 different rolls, one taken around the x-ray, one passed through.
800 ISO
Maybe the models we use have a lower dose of radiation during the scan, but remember there’s also a lot of radiation while on the plane :)
Unfortunately i don’t work on CT scanners yet, but if you pass through Copenhagen Airport, remember to always ask to get your film around the X-ray if that’s something you want, i ask everywhere i travel to, Heathrow will NOT take your film around unless its OVER 800 ISO.
In terms of safety for staff, there are lead lined “curtains” on both ends (which usually lead to light items falling of the trays, since they’re quite heavy).
They protect staff, and you can see on the machines when it’s scanning, if it’s not scanning, it’s safe to reach in there, in case something fell off :)
Thank you for your comment! I wish all the staff at airports was as nice and well-informed as you guys in Copenhagen!
Last time I did this at CPH they wanted to check all my carry on luggage. What a hassle
A year ago on a trip to Argentina I was told at the Buenos Aires domestic airport that they cannot hand check anything. The supervisor I spoke to said he would be fired if he let that happen. I had to fly out of the same airport the next day, so that’s two x-rays now.
On the return trip I went through the same airport but managed to get a hand check at the Buenos Aires international airport. That’s three x-rays.
So, long story short, a few of the outer images of my Portra 400 120 rolls (that I shot in the Southern Ocean/Antarctica) had banding and I’m sure some fogging, although of course I have no reference rolls.
So when flying domestically in Argentina, don’t expect security to be helpful.
Thanks a ton for doing this video. Hope it goes viral.
Great work, Lina. Thanks for taking on this cruel task 😅 This is a huge service to the film community 👏
This was perfect. Thank you so much for your hard work on this. I especially appreciate being able to review the results on your website at my own pace. I've got a couple trips coming up so this'll help me loads.
Lina I so appreciate all the grueling work you put in for this test. Just WOW and Thank you
Thank you for your support!
What an awesome content. Finally after so many years I get the answers I was looking for so many years. What an amazing job and detailed experiment! Really hope that this video will stay online - disclosing details about airport security is a bit dodgy subject. Thank you so much!! You are the best
Glad you liked it! I’m only disclosing stuff they themselves never properly tested and disclosed - the film damage. Otherwise, no details 🤐
What an epic video! Great work Lina 🙌
Great video, I learned a lot! Thanks for the hard work you have put into this experiment, very helpful for the film community 👍
This is the most epic test thank you for taking the time and making such a thoughtful effort on behalf of all film photographers
Thank you Lina for the time and effort you put into conducting this test! This is truly eye opening and is going to make me chose the film I take with me on trips a lot more carefully.
The amount of work you've put into making this video is unbelievable! Thank you! When I saw a 38 minutes long video about the influence of airport scanners on the film I thought I'm not nerdy enough to watch it and here I am, watched it in one go. Amazing work! 🔥
Wow, amazing video Lina! Thank you so much for taking this huge effort, absolutely epic.
Wow, what an epic test! I really appreciate all the effort you went thru to provide the community all the data!
What an effort! Thank you for taking this on. Very useful research for the community.
Just to say what an AMAZING effort from you! This is a great video, and the full results on your website are fascinating. Thank you very much for doing this video!
You're very welcome!
Thank you very much for what you did, your video is a wonderful work and it helps analog photographers a lot.🙏💙
I hope your video gets a decent amount of views
Thank you for all your work! I highly appreciate the test data!
All the best to you :)
you put an insane amount of work into this, its amazing, thank you!!
Thank you for putting in all this work. This answers a lot of my questions.
Lina, this is undoubtedly the best video ever regarding this subject matter. Well done, and thank you for hard work.
I was actually very surprised that the protective bags had any effect at all. This video might persuade me to buy one.
Thank you for doing this test! Deserves an award for this!
Great video! Thanks for doing this study in behalf of all the film photographers! 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼
Hallo Lina, vielen Dank für den riesigen Aufwand - super informatives Video !
That's most definitive scanners test ever. Thank you for all the efforts thats huge! So seems if you travel with film you need to carry it at least in double protective bag and ideally lead rubber container if you can get one. And even so, whenever possible ask for manual check.
This was fantastic, very informative. Thank you for all the hard work and effort.
One of the most important videos on YT for photographers!!! Thank you!
Thanks for doing that Lina. Such an effort for the sake of film photography. Great conclusion at the end.
Amazing work - many thanks for such an informative video!
Excellent video, thank you very much for the detailed test and dedication!!! Definitely useful information for all film shooters.
Thank you Lina, you are magnificent and we all really appreciate the amount of labour and pain you had to suffer with this..
Thank you very much for all the work you put into this, Lina. Great material.
Thank you for this Lina! I travel for a living, but not always with a film camera, so when I toss one in my bag I always forget that there are X-ray machines in my travels-too late. But now I know what to really worry about, and what not to. Also, not all my exposure problems can I blame on a single x-ray scan!
Amazing work. The entire film shooting community owes you for this. I’m still going to try my best to travel with film.
I love how you went total OCD with the security scanning. This is supremely helpful. What alternatives do we have to get film back home if we decide to ship film home to avoid carry-on scanning? What shipping carriers are best for lower scanning intensity? This may be another video project. Can't wait to see what you find and thank you for braving another 11km of airport steps
If its possible to get results for EU to USA travellers that would be awesome! Thank you
At San Francisco airport I asked for manual check of my films, and officer was OK with that. I hope it will be more and more common.
Thank you so much fot taking the effort to do this! Greetings from Argentina!
Thank you for the test! Awesome job! Much appreciated!!!
Thank you for doing this, great effort involved.
I hardly ever comment, but i must thank you for your tremendous tenacity and diligence on our behalf. This confirms my suspicions. I have very good luck, generally, getting hand checks (smiles really help where there is room for staff discretion) but it is very location-specific. We know the checked bag scanners are worse. But what do you think about sending your exposed film home via fedex or mail? Also, i am now trying to source film at my location. India, for instance, is a place i go frequently. I have scouted out where to buy film. Bottom line, as you prove: no guarantees. Again much thanks, including for making the video entertaining while serious!
ive been waiting so long for this video lets gooooo
Thanks for this video. It is very informative and I'm sure that it is helpfule for film photography community. Keep up the good work! ❤😊
Glad it was helpful! 😊
Thank you so much for going through all of that effort to get real world data on this!
Hi Lina great video and thank you for all the hard work in producing this report.
Glad you enjoyed it😊
Wow. Thank you SOOOOO much for doing all of this! This was expensive, difficult, and time consuming and I am grateful! Thank you!!
Big ups for doing this experiment!
What a great job! I think this is, from now, the reference in this topic.
Amazingly useful video! Thank you so much!
This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for your hard work!
totally welcome!
Thank you for all your hard work and research into this topic -- just incredibly in depth! Only ever had issues with one roll of film -- waves, so I'll count myself lucky.
Thank you very very much for doing this :)
I’ve been traveling with film and always in limbo, stressed and uncertain of what it could really happen to it. You give a realistic conclusion of what actually happens to it.
Cheers!
Thank you for doing this! I can’t imagine how much work went into this
Welcome ! Yeah it’s been crazy
You effort in this video is absolutely commemorative! You have earned my like and subscribe right away!
I am a full time commercial videographer who travel and shoot film for fun on my work trips. I flys about 4-6 times a month in the US, and my home airport had upgraded to CT scanner last year. They always grant me hand check, so my x-ray experience goes elsewhere.
1) when I got back into shooting film last year, I purchased a bulk of Protra 400VC (expired 2007) from a Korea photographer. He assured me that he had stored the film in freezer and still shoot it at box speed. I was skeptical because shipping it to the US means it will run through security scanner. He said it made it through to Korea safe from Rochester more than 15 years ago, and said it will be fine (which I am sure when kodak freight them, it would have special treatment through security). The price was too good, and I couldn't turn it down. I acquired the film, shoot it box speed. Base fogged was extremely high and clear sine wave could be seen right through the middle of the entire roll. I now shoot it at ISO 64 to offset the damage, which mostly yield usable and "vintage" image.
2) I finished my 9-day long assignment in NYC and was flying home. But I was so tired, I forgot to take my film out for hand check. Luckily, I had been processing films through out the trip, so there was only 1 shot roll and 2 unshot rolls in the bag that gone through LGA CT scanner. I developed the shot roll, and gain size was increased noticeability and huge drop in contrast.
3) I recently came back from Japan, the line to re-enter US after custom at ATL was extremely long. I asked and granted hand check for my 13 rolls of film, but I still have a roll of 800T loaded in my Mamiya SIX; I saw that they were using an x-ray instead of CT scan at my Pre-Check line, so I just say "screw it!" and ran it through instead of explaining and slowing down the line further. Interestingly, film on both end of the spoolers was fine, but the shot that was stretch out on the pressure plate was affected, with overexposed area on the edge of the frame and in the frame itself.
So, pretty much every time that I, wiling or by mistake, ran film through x-ray and CT scan, it has an immediate and visible effects as the consequences. I am so glad you made this video and show actual fact of what it does. Now every time someone said that I am crazy and X-ray doesn't affect film, I will just send them your video!
Your doing the lords work. Thank you Lina ❤
Perfect timing as I am flying with film for the first time in a few days. Its a relief to know that my film should be perfectly fine in the same lead bag as both airports I am flying to don't have CT scanners. But now I know to look for them and request a hand check. Cheers!
Thank you for all of your work, Lina!
You are so welcome!
Amazing effort. Thank you for this!
Wow, that's one epic experiment. Well done and thank you.
Happy you enjoyed it 😊😊
Wow! Awesome work Lina - the film community owes you one after this! I've travelled with film a good few times and never noticed anything obvious but thinking about the photoshoots I've done on recent trips I have been a bit disappointed with the image quality - your finding that there's increased base fog and reduced contrast in 400 ISO black and white could well be the problem!
Actually now that I think more about this I've realised that my last two trips to Italy I flew home from Milan where they have CT scanners. I shot 11 rolls on my last trip was disappointed with pretty much all of them. I was particularly disappointed with all the Fomapan 200 I shot as these rolls were in a Canon EOS camera using modern professional lenses and so should have had really good contrast. But those films were from a bulk roll and in the cheap plastic canisters so weren't protected against the xrays.
Fantastic Lina thank you so much for doing this.
Excellent!! Thank you so much for making this. Now, as a community, we need to rally airport security to understand this and allow hand screening. I will contact Helsinki airport tomorrow to start. The more we do this, the more people contact relevant parties, and the more we spread this info!
Helsinki contacted. Next Dallas :-) Not sure if this changes anything, but if everybody here contacts airport security, that might.
Dallas done :-)
Thank you for doing this! Great job.
Thank you Lina! 🤙🏻
Lina, amazing informational video! Thank you so much! I wonder if overexposing negative film by 1+ stops after CT scanning would minimize the effects or not. Keep up with the good content!
Thank you for this timely content.
Amazing information!!! Thank you!!!
Huge thanks to you LIna! For most of us is not possible to do test like this. Greetings from Slovakia
Very thorough! Excellent job.
Holy moly this video is a product of film love. Great job!!! THANK YOU!!!
Great great great job, lot of work, effort, and money invested in this. Thank you very much to finally clarify, with tests, what could happen to our films.
that's so much work! thank you!
Thanx for a such huge work!
Amazing video! Thank you for all the effort and the fieldwork to get it done! I started shooting film last year after buying an old camera, and I had a 35mm Portra 400 traveling with me to many countries between August and January. The results were obviously awful: completely foggy.
Ans I kept wondering what I had done wrong. Now it makes sense
This was really interesting and a lot of work! I haven't brought film on a plane for almost twenty years, but what I used to do when going somewhere reasonably civilized was to just bring one film in the camera, ask for manual inspection (usually worked, except on Heathrow) and then buy the rest of the film I needed after the flight. Going back I tried to get the films developed before my return flight(s) if possible. I'm of course aware that this strategy is much harder today, but it's still possible in some places.
Amazing work! So precious for the community! Is there a kind of a "nobel prise" for this???
Thanks for making this Lina. And yeah, Airport Security services could in general definitely have an attitude adjustment towards the nice.
I’m torn:) I understand their job is very stressful, so I don’t expect some super attitude… but having my work destroyed is quite stressful too 😅
Amazing work ❤
This is really good stuff. ❤️
Gran bel lavoro! Complimenti!
Thanks for this massive work. I've alwyas been concerned about xrays when flying. Whilst I haven't noticed anything very obvious (without having a reference image), I think that I've been fairly lucky. I normally ask for hand checks and most security have obliged. Flew through Heathrow with about 15 rolls in December and got a hand check. Always be polite and most people are fine.
Wow, what a fantastic experiment. Thank you so much for all the tests! I've had film damaged too, and sometimes when I ask for hand checks they will double check my baggage too, but most of the time they understand
Yeah… it’s a gamble every time
Just found your channel! Thank you for this informational video!
Thanks for this huge amount of work and Money you put into this. I'm really impressed and thankful for this. Can't wait to see the video right at the perfect Moment. Saturday I start to a holiday Trip to Athens, of course with an Analog Camera in my Backpack😅
Thanks for doing this test and the great efforts clearly you have taken. This is very helpful. I've been taking film abroad through regular X-ray machines for over 10 years, and hardly ever been granted a hand check (unusually only Santorini airport staff hand checked it without me asking!) and I've never had any issues. I'm yet to go through CT scanners and was worried about it. I am still, a bit, but most of my abroad films are 100 or 400 at most.
Hi Lina thanks for doing this, it was very interesting and helpful.
As an amateur photographer who travels occasionally and always with B&W 35mm film I’m in your least affected category (🙏).
The key information here for me is, as you pointed, the lack of a reference. Most people just travel, shoot, come back and think nothing happened to the film at security. Myself included.
Also, how popular are these CT scanners? I don’t remember seeing them, but maybe I was not paying attention. Everyone is in a rush during security checks 😄.
Thank you again for your work for us!
Thank you for your feedback! Basically every airport undergoing renovations is getting CT scanners. They're just so much faster. Last place I saw them was Belgrade - freshly installed. They're in Geneva, Milan, Amsterdam, London, Frankfurt - at least those I know about...
Great video!
This is awesome! Thank you!
As a new amateur photographer that uses polaroid film I greatly appreciate these types of videos. Thank you for all your work! :)
Thank you for this amazing, well balanced, fact-based video. I tried to make a couple of videos on this topic but this really takes the cake.
Great undertaking. Classical (not "analog", mind you) photographers will appreciate this experiment.
Thank you so much for doing this test. It proves to me once again to continue handing my film to TSA agents for a manual check, if I'm not holding up the line.
Super interesting experiment. Thanks!
The CT scans in the airports are safe for outside personnel, they definitely do not work at the same power levels and energies that of medical ones, and both the gantry and foldable covers at the ends protect people around from harm.
Also, the more you add dense protections around your films, the more these scanners will boost the xrays they produce in order to get through and view what is inside (like would the auto settings when using your flash), so it is really dependent of the CT manufacturer, the auto-exposure algorithms, the xray sensors on the machine, and the image reconstruction software that are used. All that to say it might actually be counter-productive to cover your film with steel and lead when going through these higher energy machines (thought my personal experience, lead protections tend to protect better and let less photo altering rays through rather than steel).
Airport machines tend also to work at variable energies (the kilovolts) which reveal different kind of materials (which usually show as different colors on the controller's screen). Films have different sensitivities to these energy spectrums, so one film might be super sensitive to a machines xray spectrum and not as much to another. There are also films that are by nature sensitive to xray (e.g. FPP's x-ray 120 film...) that will then clearly print the rays...
It is definitely a complex process, but all traditional films will usually be altered to one level or another, it's just very complicated to objectively cover all the manufacturers of both xray machines and films.
@zans is right.
We should consider also that films manufactured in one country or another will be delivered to their final retailers by plane. Hence the film will undergo a scan at some points.
In 30 years of professional photographic life I never had to complain about scan issues. The magic number of 2 scans (go and back) is fair. Of course, putting films over and over under airport scans is not good. The only valid suggestion and advise I can give is: develop your film locally (when possible). If not possible take your gears and chems with you and do the job on location. There are not so many different ways.
This was my understanding too regarding x-ray protective bags (i.e., that they may end up counter productive). But if you go through the pictures on Lina's website it seems in every case the bag is better. What am I missing?
Thank you very much for your effort ❤
I can't imagine how expensive it was to make this video....
But, it was probably the best video I've seen on that subject matter.
Thank you for doing this.