Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/08/19

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Back from Israel/airport x-ray
From: rardinge@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 08:18:33 -0500

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.