New (as of 2019) airport CT scanners

btaylor said:

Here is my recent experience with airport scanners, $200 worth of Ilford paper thrown out. I was assured by someone who is an expert that the airport scanners will not affect the box of paper I was carrying. The TSA guy pulled the box and started to open the box- please no!- I said. I’ll run it though the scanner again he says- okay. Processed the first print- banding and fog, paper useless. Be careful out there.

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Regular X-ray scanner or CT scanner? The former are claimed to be "safe" up to ISO800/1600 for a single pass, and surely paper is less sensitive than film.

btaylor said:

Here is my recent experience with airport scanners, $200 worth of Ilford paper thrown out. I was assured by someone who is an expert that the airport scanners will not affect the box of paper I was carrying. The TSA guy pulled the box and started to open the box- please no!- I said. I’ll run it though the scanner again he says- okay. Processed the first print- banding and fog, paper useless. Be careful out there.

Click to expand...

X-ray or CT? I would have guessed X-ray would be even safer for paper than for film, but I don’t recall seeing any actual tests of paper through either kind. Sorry that happened.

-NT

Does anyone have information about whether they will honor hand check requests in Manila and Cebu airports?

I haven't been to the Philippines yet, but so far have been able to get hand checks in all east Asian countries I've been to with film (Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia).

btaylor said:

Here is my recent experience with airport scanners, $200 worth of Ilford paper thrown out. I was assured by someone who is an expert that the airport scanners will not affect the box of paper I was carrying. The TSA guy pulled the box and started to open the box- please no!- I said. I’ll run it though the scanner again he says- okay. Processed the first print- banding and fog, paper useless. Be careful out there.

Click to expand...

I've flown from Seattle to Calgary with fibre-based variable contrast paper (bought from Glazers).....passed through the x-ray machine (pre CT scanners)....also from Austin to Calgary w paper from Precision Camera. Both times the paper survived w no fogging or banding....

Enlarging paper is extremely low in ISO equiavalence...said to be below ISO 10. Film with ISO 3200 has been tested by manufacturers of Security X-ray machines, with no exposure in spite of multiple pass tests thru X-ray.
Current CT scanners being installed since about 2023 (but still NOT in all airports at all Security inspection areas yet) has been known to fog film, so most places with CT scanners will usually comply with requests for hand inspection, but will not comply with such requests when only X-ray imagers are used.