Current experience with X-ray scanners - May 2022

I just returned from a 2-week trip from Billings, MT to Venice and Florence, Italy. On the way there I flew from Billings to Denver to Toronto to Frankfurt to Venice. On the way back it was Venice to Frankfurt to Denver to Billings. While I primarily used my phone to take photos, I took along my Minolta SRT-201 and 6 rolls of Ilford HP5+400 that I loaded from bulk. 4 of the canisters were Kalt brand and 2 were generic. All were metal. I planned to use the film camera for street photography and figured I would get what I get.

I do TSA-Pre and when going through Billings I asked for and received a hand inspection. I had the canisters in a ziploc bag and it was easy to see the film tongues from each one since I didn’t have them in plastic cans. They swabbed them and I was good to go. When I got to Frankfurt I was directed to immigration where they went though my paperwork and stamped my passport for a transit visa. There was some confusion about where I should go next to get to my gate and I ended up riding a tram to another terminal which, I guess, took me out of security so I had to go through it again when I arrived. They were not interested in hand inspecting anything BUT ME. I always go through the metal detector just fine but they didn’t have one so I had to go through the full body scanner while my film went through X-ray. I have an AMS800 implant which the metal detector doesn’t find but the body scanner did. I have no paperwork regarding the implant since it’s so small and I only wear a medical alert bracelet for it. They were not interested in any of that and took me aside and I received more physical contact than I have ever had from another guy. They sent me on my way.

In Italy I had the camera and an extra roll with me when I went to the museums and several of them, like the Uffuzi and San Marco, have you go through security which is an X-ray scan of your bag and a metal detector for you. No hand inspection due to the crowds.

On my return flight from Venice, in the turmoil of trying to stay with my group (I was on a university study abroad) I actually forgot to ask for a hand inspection so all the film went through the scanner. When I got to Denver I found that my flight to Billings was cancelled, supposedly due to weather. (This turned out to be untrue. It was snowing in Denver but I have flown through there many times in the winter and they just de-ice you and you go. What they did was, due to the current shortage of personnel, was to reallocate our plane to Palm Springs. They told us it was weather related so they they didn’t have to pay for our overnight stay in a hotel. I have filed a claim.) The next day I went through security (TSA-Pre) and ask for a hand inspection of my film. They took it away while my bag and I went through our scanners. They handed the zip-lock bag of film back to me and there was a bit of a kerfuffle over my carryon which they sent through the scanner about 3 times. The line was backing up and people were getting antsy. They finally gave me my bag and I moved into the outer area to put the film back into the bag. That’s when I noticed that one of the caps from a generic canister was loose in the bag. Sure enough, I could see the film. Sigh….

When I got home I developed the 3 rolls I’d shot, which included the now assuredly fogged one, in D76 stock. When I pulled them out of the wash I was surprised to find that the two that hadn’t been opened looked just fine. The one that was opened was fogged but only about the first half of the roll and even in that half I could still make out images. I guess the tightness of the roll on the spindle helped.

That’s my latest experience traveling with film and I’m looking forward to doing it again.

Thanks so incredibly much for this report. I take from it that there's a psychic price to be paid for traveling with film, but that otherwise it is manageable.

If they swab 135 film tongues, I wonder what do they do to 120 film?

Thanks for the report.

I am traveling to the Caribbean in a few weeks and was wondering if bulk-rolled film would be an issue. I guess I will only take commercially rolled film with me.

What I am missing from your story is what kind of scanner (better even model) has been used on your films. Without that your report is just anecdotal...
Though... the report on that loose cap puts all the fear of modern scanners into perspective.

AgX said:

What I am missing from your story is what kind of scanner (better even model) has been used on your films. Without that your report is just anecdotal...
Though... the report on that loose cap puts all the fear of modern scanners into perspective.

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Of course my report is anecdotal and wasn’t meant to be anything other than that. Moving though a busy security line, one doesn’t really have the opportunity to collect the model number of the scanners used especially in some places where the personnel are stern at best.

Yes, I appreciate this and found it an interesting reading. Being anecdotal it likely was the reason you placed it in a thread of its own.


(In context of that "threat by new scanners" thread though it could be read as "I drove through a red light and nothing happened". Even if at an airport reported to having new scanners nothing harmed your film, could just mean that such was not yet installed at the gate you went through. Yes... I am in the pessimist mode right now...)

CT scanners are visually different than old style scanners. They are bigger and new-looking. If you look up pictures of several beforehand, it is not hard to distinguish them at the airport. I have not yet seen a CT scanner in use outside an airport such as a museum entrance, typically only the old style.

I just flew domestically in the US. My departure airport has recently installed a new CT scanner (actually they have a new and old scanner side by side at the moment). I had a clear ziploc bag with several 35mm film canisters in plastic cans that I handed to the TSA agent for hand inspection. They took the bag off to swab it and drop the swab in a tester - they did not actually open the bag or the cans. I got the bag back after a slight delay and was on my way. This is the second or third time I've had film hand-inspected inside the US recently after the introduction of CT scanners. I have not dealt with it in Europe and expect it would be harder or impossible.

Over 20 years ago, before 9/11, I used to bring some scientific optical equipment through security as a carry-on. I would put it through the X-ray machine and then, because it looked weird, US security would often swab the bag. They didn't open the hard case and sometimes not the outer bag. I believe that the swab tester is probably testing for nitrogen residue, maybe other explosive compounds. Anyway, I doubt they actually need to open the cans for swabbing.

Side note, international arrivals to the EU in an airport such as Frankfurt typically wind up going through immigration and then outside security, so you have to go back through security to get to your connecting flight. (Since the OP's connecting flight was inside the Schengen region, he had to enter the EU on arrival in Frankfurt.) The same is true in the US, if you arrive at a US international airport and have a US connection, you wind up outside security and have to go back through to reach your domestic flight.

reddesert said:

CT scanners are visually different than old style scanners. They are bigger and new-looking.

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Yes, that is what we have in Billings now. All the other ones were much smaller.

And, yes, your description about arriving in Frankfurt mirrors my experience. What was interesting is that Frankfurt was only interested in where and I was going and why, sort of standard questions and then stamped my passport. I thought I’d eventually have to go through customs when I arrived in Venice but I just headed for the exit and left the airport. Billings to Venice, no customs.

Customs coming back to the US was handled at Denver. We were given a customs form to fill out on the flight a little while before landing where we declare everything we were bringing back. I brought back only a couple items totally maybe $25. That didn’t seem to be a problem but when the customs officer asked why I had gone to Italy and I said that I was a student on study abroad, that got their interest and the agent spent lots of time on the computer, repeatedly glancing up at me. Is being on a study abroad suspicious? Or maybe it’s because I turn 70 next week and that doesn’t align with a profile.

The bottom line is that when doing travel, particularly international travel, patience, low expectations, manners, and a sense of humor will go far.

VinceInMT said:

What was interesting is that Frankfurt was only interested in where and I was going and why, sort of standard questions and then stamped my passport. I thought I’d eventually have to go through customs when I arrived in Venice but I just headed for the exit and left the airport. Billings to Venice, no customs.

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At german airports you have the choice to go through customs or not. Passing them means you state you have nothing of fiscal interest with you.

Should for any reason at passing you attract the attention of customs officers, or just end up in a sample and then it should turn out that you nonetheless got things of fiscal interest with you, you are charged for intentional tax evasion.
You will be fined for this and loose more money than having approached customs directly.

We just came back from a week's stay in southern Italy. Just two flights, both within EU, and only two instances of baggage checks/scans. One airport has the newer CT scanners, the other has the older x-ray ones which are still far more common especially at smaller airports. I carried my film in a clear ziplock bag with the well-known Kodak label as well as a few sentences in Italian explaining x-ray may destroy the film. I asked for hand inspection on both airports and was granted one in both instances, without any fuss, delay or difficulties. Both airports were plenty busy with long queues at the scanners.

So far since the introduction of CT scanners I have consistently been asking and getting hand inspection of my film (knock on wood). I mostly do this to familiarize security personnel with the phenomenon of film and the care it requires (and deserves!) The first time I tried this at my "home base" airport, I had to explain what's up; on our flight last week there were no questions and my request was handled as a matter of routine. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been asking for manual inspection of sensitive materials.

If we all consistently ask for manual inspection, there's a chance this will trickle upwards to security management and scanner manufacturers and official instructions are put in place to exempt certain items from CT scanning.

koraks said:

We just came back from a week's stay in southern Italy. Just two flights, both within EU, and only two instances of baggage checks/scans. One airport has the newer CT scanners, the other has the older x-ray ones which are still far more common especially at smaller airports. I carried my film in a clear ziplock bag with the well-known Kodak label as well as a few sentences in Italian explaining x-ray may destroy the film. I asked for hand inspection on both airports and was granted one in both instances, without any fuss, delay or difficulties. Both airports were plenty busy with long queues at the scanners.

So far since the introduction of CT scanners I have consistently been asking and getting hand inspection of my film (knock on wood). I mostly do this to familiarize security personnel with the phenomenon of film and the care it requires (and deserves!) The first time I tried this at my "home base" airport, I had to explain what's up; on our flight last week there were no questions and my request was handled as a matter of routine. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been asking for manual inspection of sensitive materials.

If we all consistently ask for manual inspection, there's a chance this will trickle upwards to security management and scanner manufacturers and official instructions are put in place to exempt certain items from CT scanning.

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This is great news.

I'd suggest that people should request hand inspection more, even symbolically -- that is, carry one or two rolls that you don't mind sacrificing, and request hand inspection.

The more people carry film at airports, the more will the officials get used to film and understanding what's inside.

I'm planing to go to Venice in July and am considering the x-ray problem. Traveling light, I'll bring the Leica M6 and some Tri-X. Hope all goes well.

AgX said:

At german airports you have the choice to go through customs or not. Passing them means you state you have nothing of fiscal interest with you.

Should for any reason at passing you attract the attention of customs officers, or just end up in a sample and then it should turn out that you nonetheless got things of fiscal interest with you, you are charged for intentional tax evasion.
You will be fined for this and loose more money than having approached customs directly.

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Here a respective board above the baggage belt:



Here a resp. pathway:

Does anyone here know for sure that Berlin Brandenburg "Willy Brandt" has the new CT scanners for hand luggage?

The reason I ask that question is that the same topic of airport CT scanners damaging film has come up on another forum called FADU This is largely a U.K. populated forum but has a few members from N America and Europe

Anyway a Scotland based member has recently travelled from Edinburgh airport to Berlin Brandenburg airport and had his film passed through scanners at both airports twice with no damage. He was carrying a selection of C41, Cinestill and Ilford b&w

Let me qualify "no damage" Currently of the b&w he developed his Ilford SFX today and reports no damage. If SFX is undamaged then it would seem likely that the rest of his film will be damaged also when he develops it but, yes, currently he can only report on one of his films, namely SFX

Unfortunately he does not know that they are the latest scanners but Berlin Brandenburg is brand new and as far as I can discover CT hand luggage scanners were trialled in November 2019 at Edinburgh so two and a half years later I'd have thought must now be the norm i.e. are unlikely to be have been replaced with the old scanners

I tried googling what either airport had to say about film in hand luggage and it was as if film doesn't exist

So any confirmation of the type of scanners are will be welcome. Unless neither airport uses the new CT scanners for hand luggage then it would seem to cast doubt on damage being a certainty

Thanks

pentaxuser

pentaxuser said:

so two and a half years later I'd have thought must now be the norm

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Certainly not. Moet airports still use x-ray. One of the major hubs in NW Europe, Amsterdam airport, only has a couple of lines with CT and the remainder is still x-ray AFAIK (I refuse to travel through that hell hole).

Anyway, I don't think this little experiment tells much of a story. We already know from firm evidence that CT scanners can damage film in just a single pass.

pentaxuser said:

I tried googling what either airport had to say about film in hand luggage and it was as if film doesn't exist

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I made this experience already at the sites of the scanner manufacturers.

koraks said:

Certainly not. Most airports still use x-ray.

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To my understanding Pentaxuser meant "the stand of technology today", that is that airports opening just now would have the new technology scanners.


(The story of the recently opened Berlin airport is an extremely long one, the opening sheduled for june 2012, with the moving of all equipment planned in detail. Four weeks in advance that movement was cancelled. So it depends what decisions on scanners was taken in the years to come.)

So far the only european airport I heard about having CT scanners is Amsterdam. All Spanish airports I know, including Madrid and Barcelona, still use standard ones. I suppose that the advantages of this technology are not so clear to justify the investment.

Munich Airport got these since end of 2019. But the government of Bavaria stated that an alternative method of control can be applied on request.




Here a video from the testing phase in the summer if 2019, when old and new scanners were running in parallel and people could choose where to go.

AgX said:

To my understanding Pentaxuser meant "the stand of technology today", that is that airports opening just now would have the new technology scanners.


(The story of the recently opened Berlin airport is an extremely long one, the opening sheduled for june 2012, with the moving of all equipment planned in detail. Four weeks in advance that movement was cancelled. So it depends what decisions on scanners was taken in the years to come.)

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Thanks AgX That was what I meant and in specific regard to Edinburgh airport which had started trials of the new CT scanner as far back as 2019 so it is unlikely that without it attracting attention from news gatherers such as newspapers the authorities at Edinburgh airport would have decided to remove the CT scanner and revert back to the older X ray scanners without there being some news that this had happened

So yes the facts are not completely clear and ideally we need members here on Photrio who have used either or both airports in recent weeks to state their experience

I know enough about the member on the other site to state that if he says he has developed an Ilford SFX film and there was no damage then that's the truth. One little experience might tell us a lot, such as both airports still use old scanners and in the case of Edinburgh this is because it abandoned its trial with the CT scanners and stayed with its former scanners. This sounds unlikely but is not impossible

Alternatively this person did have his film scanned 4 times by the new CT scanners and by sheer luck or a miracle somehow his SFX was left unscathed.

Final possibility is that his SFX was in fact damaged but only to an extent that remains unnoticed to him. Oh, and by the way I know enough to say that he is not a beginner at home processing or looking at negatives

Just a pity that with increasing frequency on this forum there is a tendency to dismiss whatever is reported if it doesn't fit whatever some people "know" is the truth

I hope we hear from others who have recently used these airports so we get their experiences

pentaxuser

Reports that a film went through a scanner and was undamaged are only marginally helpful, because even a modest risk of damaged film is not acceptable to most. Most of us would probably say that a 10% risk of noticeably damaged film is too high, because of the time and effort spent taking pictures.

If, hypothetically, a single trip through a CT scanner had a 10% risk of damage, then one roll could make 4 trips through CT scanners and have a 66% chance that your film would come out unscathed. (0.9 ^ 4 = 0.66) This is why a report that one roll wasn't damaged has very little statistical power, because we are trying to measure a risk that has severe consequences even if the probability is low.

So it is wasted effort to belabor whether one roll at one airport went through a CT scanner or not. One would have to put several rolls through several different CT scanners several times to even begin to measure probabilities. As far as I know, the experiment has already been done to show that at least some model of CT scanner has a significant chance of damaging film.

pentaxuser said:

Just a pity that with increasing frequency on this forum there is a tendency to dismiss whatever is reported if it doesn't fit whatever some people "know" is the

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Be that as it may, you just gave a nice list (not even exhaustive) why the single experience you wrote about won't give conclusive insights into even that particular instance - let alone provide much help for other travelers through other airports.

pentaxuser said:

I know enough to say that he is not a beginner at home processing or looking at negatives

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We'll have to take your word for it, I guess?

AgX said:

Munich Airport got these since end of 2019. But the government of Bavaria stated that an alternative method of control can be applied on request.

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Frankfurt is the southest airport of Germany I use to be and on business, but noted Munich CT scanners for the future.

To both my responders, koraks and reddesert.

1. The person in question went through the scanners 4 times( twice at Edinburgh and twice at Berlin)

2. I had understood Ilford to to be pretty unequivocal about damage to a noticeable extend will occur to films.

A question now for reddesert: Is the 10% risk of damage based on a hypothetical figure that you are using for the purposes of illustration of the principle of increasing risk or is this a figure that represents the real risk of damage on one pass?

In case it wasn't clear in my post its prime purpose was to seek confirmation or otherwise that Edinburgh and Berlin use the new CT scanners. That was its prime purpose. Why was I asking? Well I thought it was also clear,namely that on another forum a member of whom I have some knowledge in terms of his honesty and experience of examining negatives, was saying that his SFX wasn't fogged.

I can't recall seeing anyone reporting this experience at either airport so I thought it sensible to mention his experience as others such as VinceInMT did of his experience

I then in my last sentence had the misfortune to say that if either airport had CT scanners then his experience may have cast doubt on whether to use Ilford's words: "Based on our initial testing it is almost certain the new CT type x-ray scanners for cabin baggage will be deemed unsafe for any of our ILFORD and KENTMERE film products irrespective of ISO speed rating"

Perhaps I need to learn a lesson here which is that even asking questions qualified by reasons and then saying it may( not does ) cast doubt on the inevitability of Ilford's statement invites a "Gunfight at OK Corral "


pentaxuser

I don't think anyone has said that every film sent through the scanners will be damaged in the same way, or to the same extent.
Unless you have duplicate exposed film rolls that can be used as a control, you can't really say definitively that a film has come through the scanner "undamaged". Even with those control rolls, you may in some cases need to employ a microscope
At best, you can only say whether or not you can see/detect any damage.
As an example, damage to a negative may be easily seen in even areas of sky, and very difficult to see in ground level foliage.
The potential for damage may also vary with equipment versions, setup, and operation.
All of which is to say that it is far too early to come to definitive conclusions about how dangerous to film these machines are. It isn't too early to assume that it is almost certain that they will be unsafe, at least to some extent.