I recently did a round trip from London UK to New York. I was carrying a bunch of Neopand 1600 and Agfa APX 400 (difficult to find in NY and I had not much time to spend shopping around). I was unable to avoid the films to be scanned. Once in New York I ran out of film and bought some Tri X. Back home, after a second scan of the Neopan and Agfa and a 1st scan on the Tri X, I just finished developping most of my films. They are all more or less fogged. I used different developpers on different films: Rodinal on Agfa, Emofin on the rest (lots of night shots). After seing the first fogged rolls I renewed all my chemicals, to no avail: I'm pretty sure the films have been fogged during X-Ray scanning.

My questions: Besides using some Farmer's reducer, does anybody has good advice on how best to remove fog? I still have a few rolls to develop: Is there a special developer I can use to reduce fog?

Some findings: Despite being scanned 2 times and being the fastest film, Neopan 1600 (more like a 800 Iso film) shows almost no fog at all. Agfa 400: Also scanned twice. Nasty fogging on some rolls, less on some others. Still printable as is, but would be better if I could reduce fog. Tri X: A surprise. It has been scanned only once, but shows the most fog. In fact it has so much fog that I cannot get any decent print out of it.

Thanks

-- Xavier C. (xcolmant@powerir.com), December 13, 2001

Answers

Check your camera.

-- Wilhelm (bmitch@home.com), December 13, 2001.

No problem there: I shot/processed several rolls since my return and they don't show any fog.

-- Xavier C. (xcolmant@powerir.com), December 13, 2001.

This is interesting, since I just travelled to Rome and back. I took only T-Max 100 film, which went through x-ray scanners in Austin, Amsterdam, Rome, and Amsterdam again (and also at the Vatican). All rolls were just fine upon my return. The real problem is that the film was too slow for 90% of what I shot, so I didn't get much. Did you put your film in your luggage, or just through the scanners at the security checkpoints?

-- Ed Buffaloe (edb@unblinkingeye.com), December 13, 2001.

I do this trip several times a year and it's the first time I get this problem. Maybe if I looked more closely now, I would discover some slight fog on films which did the trip before.

I must admit that on this occasion part of my films went with the luggages. I generally avoid it as luggage scanners are reputedly stronger than the ones used at security checkpoints. Most of my films went with me, although I cannot remember which ones.

Another interesting point is the Tri X fogging which seems to suggest the damage was done in New York (I used British Airways). I'm wondering if they did not put new scanners in place since September 11th.

-- Xavier C. (xcolmant@powerir.com), December 13, 2001.

If you went through London that could be where the problem happened. They have "state of the art" equipment there and take no prisoners when scanning. The problem could also be gray market film, where "Tri-X" seems to be at the top of the list. X-ray damaged film usually shows as an uneven fog. Sometimes shows as waves or streaks of light running through the roll. An overall even fog is less rare.

-- James Megargee (jmegargee@nyc.rr.com), December 14, 2001.

James,

After a night of rest, I agree with you: It's very unlikely scanning produced this amount of fog. I can definitely see some damage on other films which really look to me as coming from scanning. For the Tri X, something else happened: Mistake on my part, defective film (I bought it quickly at one of these one-hour lab you find everywhere in NY).

-- Xavier C. (xcolmant@powerir.com), December 14, 2001.

I've been through London Heathrow at least 100 times (and lots of other airports as well) with film (Tri-X, T-Max 100 and BPF 200) in my carry on, both unexposed and, occasionally, exposed. The most recent trip was in November. Despite often having film x-rayed in this manner up to six times a trip,I have never, ever had a fogged sheet of film. Some of these were carried in film holders, some in boxes. Perhaps you should look elsewhere for your problem. The carry- on scanners in most airports boast a sign which declares them to be "film safe". Also, and especially if you use roll film, such scanning will leave streaks and blotches, not even fogging. I would be interested in hearing if anyone out there has ever had a case of fogging which could be directly attributable to having carry-on film x-rayed (I have stopped packing film in checked luggage due to the introduction of more powerful scanners in some airports). I've posed this question before and had no answers. My two cents.

-- Doremus Scudder (ScudderLandreth@compuserve.com), December 15, 2001.

I did some reading and some testing: I agree to the post above. The fog I got on my negatives has nothing to do with Xray scanning.

For the Agfa APX 400: It was a full batch I bought shortly before doing my trip. I still had some rolls which did not do the trip. I developed one without exposing it through my camera: I have the same slight greyish fog than on the rolls which did the journey. Right now I still don't know who is the culprit: Film itself, Rodinal developer, light leak while loading the film... As I processed several rolls before, during and after my trip in another developer than Rodinal, I don't think light leak is the cause of fogging.

For the Tri X, I still have two unexposed rolls (which did a one way trip). When I have some spare time, I will develop one and see what I get.

Sorry for the false alert.

-- Xavier C. (xcolmant@powerir.com), December 18, 2001.

Two points: (1) The latest luggage scanners will inevitably fog film, since their penetration is up to 300 times higher than the older scanners use. Airport security DOES NOT tell which scanners are in use so not to give any clues for potential smugglers etc. (2) Some manufacturers seem to incoporate preexposed halides into the emulsion to achieve higher film speeds. These halides inevitably are far more susceptible to fogging.

-- Volker Schier (Volker.Schier@fen-net.de), December 19, 2001.