Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/08/19
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Regarding Mr. Wajsman's comments about his trip to Israel and x-ray scanners at airports. I recently flew back to the US from Germany via Frankfurt. I usually put all my film in clear fuji plastic containers and use a 9 x 12 clear plastic bag which holds 30 rolls. In the US and at most other checkpoints I just bring out these clear bags and ask for a hand inspection. I have two 9 x 12 lead lined bags (made of the same stuff as medical lead x-ray aprons) which the plastic bags fit into and I brought them on the trip figuring I would run into situations where I might not be able to get a "hand" film inspection. For the trip through Frankfurt I was a bit intimidated with the security so just used the lead bags and did not ask for a hand chack. I was able to pass through the metal detector before the film bag had made it through the scanner so I was able to watch and see how the lead bag image came up. At first it did look like a blob of black but then the tech apparently rescanned it and I suspect by using a bit of subtraction technology was able to refine the image to essentially see through the bag. I could clearly see the image change and one could easily tell the outline of the plastic containers and the film cassettes. The lead bag was rendered almost transparent. I really doubt that the tech can significantly change the x-ray intensity as that would cause a variation in radiation fall off and could poise a risk to the health of the security personel (who are around it all the time) but given what can be done with medical digital subtraction in obtaining medical images I wondered if that technology had made it to security scanners. If so that would be nice as it can provide a very high resolution image without a significant increase in radiation. Any thoughts? BTW, film (all 400 asa) did fine. Robert Robert H. Ardinger, Jr., M.D.