Highest speed film for airport security

Hi, I'm sure this has been asked before and I apologize for the repeat. I am
planning a trip to film mountain gorillas in Uganda and know I'll need fast
film to get good pictures in the forest canopy that I will find them. I
probably will be travelling USA through London or Amsterdam to Entebbe. I know
in the US I can get hand checks of my film, but am concerned about elsewhere.
How fast can I go with film that may be scanned 2 or 4 times at checkin on the
international flights? Can I risk 1000 speed film or higher?

Thanks,
Ed

The airports always tell me that anything under 400 is safe to go through the carry-on scanners. They also tell me that no film should go through the checked baggage scanners.

I make them hand check all my film even though I rarely travel with anything faster than 100.

Sometimes they balk and I have to ask twice, but American security has to hand check anything that you request. Not sure if this will be true in airports outside of the US.

It's slower than letting it go through the scanner, but I've never had a foggy roll of film from a trip :-)

--
Doug Greenwald
Keeper of the Bad Attitude



"Edc4" wrote in message ...
Hi, I'm sure this has been asked before and I apologize for the repeat. I am
planning a trip to film mountain gorillas in Uganda and know I'll need fast
film to get good pictures in the forest canopy that I will find them. I
probably will be travelling USA through London or Amsterdam to Entebbe. I know
in the US I can get hand checks of my film, but am concerned about elsewhere.
How fast can I go with film that may be scanned 2 or 4 times at checkin on the
international flights? Can I risk 1000 speed film or higher?

Thanks,
Ed

Kodak have a good technical article about the effects of airport scanners.

http://www.kodak.com/cluster/global/.../tib5201.shtml

I took a printed copy of it with me when I was going through a lot of airports
last summer - it came in handy.

Rob
www.rcp.ca

Believe it or not, ordinary film is hardly sensitive to X-rays, even
very fast film.

wrote:

Believe it or not, ordinary film is hardly sensitive to X-rays, even
very fast film.




I don't believe it. Did you read the Kodak Technical Information
Bulletin cited by Rob? The TIB demonstrates effects even on 200 speed
film (increased grain), though visible changes to the negative are more
apparent on films having a speed of 400 or more.


Francis A. Miniter

"Francis A. Miniter" wrote in message
...
wrote:

Believe it or not, ordinary film is hardly sensitive to X-rays, even
very fast film.



I don't believe it. Did you read the Kodak Technical Information
Bulletin cited by Rob? The TIB demonstrates effects even on 200 speed
film (increased grain), though visible changes to the negative are more
apparent on films having a speed of 400 or more.

Francis A. Miniter

Kodak have obviously done a lot of test and research on this matter and no
doubt the other major film manufacturing companies too, well done Kodak.

They say to hand check 800 and faster, but I have traveled with 3200 speed film
and even after several scans I saw no effect at all.

Jon

X-ray films are quite a bit different from ordinary films. Film is
sensitive to light and near UV. X-rays have to be exceedingly powerful
to affect film.

wrote:

X-ray films are quite a bit different from ordinary films. Film is
sensitive to light and near UV. X-rays have to be exceedingly powerful
to affect film.




Are you disputing the Kodak research? (You don't say if you read the
TIB.)

If so, have you done your own research and how was it conducted?
Haphazardly by trial and chance? Or did you do controlled studies of
two sets of films of various speeds all containing images of the same
subject matter, one set not exposed to radiation and the other set put
through the typical airport visualization devices?

If so, then please explain where the Kodak research went wrong.


Francis A. Miniter

'Exceedingly powerful' is the key. The X-rays used in the past were
much weaker. I went to Europe in 1995 and my Kodachrome 64 was x-rayed
repeatedly, yet showed no loss of d-max or any other fault.

That was, I repeat, 1995. The equipment in use now must be much
stronger to affect film, because ordinary film is much less sensitive
to x-rays than x-ray film is. It's actually hard to get silver halide
to respond to x-rays at moderate levels.