As security gets tighter at airports around the world, the photography community has constantly been worried about what modern X-ray machines do to good old film.
Although film with lower ISO can usually handle the regular X-ray machines just fine, there is a new type of Computed Tomography (CT) scanner that is much more harmful. Although these scanners are currently only in a handful of airports, they are expected to become more widespread in the coming years.
This has led to Kodak issuing an advisory on their Facebook page. The company has been telling users not to check their film but rather carry it with them and get the TSA to check it by hand.
To better understand the impact of the newer CT scanners on their film, Kodak took a bunch of Portra 400/135 rolls to JF Kennedy airport and put it through the scanners. The results didn’t turn out so good. Just going through the scanner once resulted in film fogging, smoky blacks and loss of shadow detail.
Although TSA is trained to not scan film and disposable one-off cameras, Kodak is going to produce warning labels that you can put on your film as an extra measure. You can read the full Facebook post below.