Passing Film Through an X-Ray

[David Sweetman]

I know you can't pass motion picture film through an x-ray, but I've got a buddy who's going to Uganda and taking his 35mm SLR with him. Can you pass still film through an x-ray? I would assume tourists do it all the time...what's up with that? Will it screw up his film?

 

thanks

Dave

[Trevor Greenfield]

Theres a few threads already on the subject like this one:

 

http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...=10434&hl=x-ray

 

Best bet, take your film in a seperate bag for carryon and tell them HAND INSPECTION.

[Dominic Case]

One difference with still film is that if you get slight fogging over part of one frame, it might not be very noticeable - but the same fogging on a roll of motion picture film will show up as a flickering density that changes from frame to frame - much more objectionable.

 

This will happen if your roll of film is in the x-ray shadow of something else - like the next can of film, or the edge of the x-ray beam - so it doesn't get uniformly fogged.

 

It's also easier to carry a handful of cassettes and get them hand-inspected: the security guys often know what a 35mm cassette looks like, but they are less familiar with a carton of 400 ft rolls of 16mm motion picture stock.

[william koon]

One difference with still film is that if you get slight fogging over part of one frame, it might not be very noticeable - but the same fogging on a roll of motion picture film will show up as a flickering density that changes from frame to frame - much more objectionable.

 

This will happen if your roll of film is in the x-ray shadow of something else - like the next can of film, or the edge of the x-ray beam - so it doesn't get uniformly fogged.

 

It's also easier to carry a handful of cassettes and get them hand-inspected: the security guys often know what a 35mm cassette looks like, but they are less familiar with a carton of 400 ft rolls of 16mm motion picture stock.

I presume you mention this problem in ports. I thought that almost all ports are using filmsave machine to screen for security posing no threat to our film now. Can we thrust them ?