Yes, X-rays can damage photographic film. The radiation interacts with the light-sensitive silver halide crystals in the film emulsion, creating unwanted exposure known as fogging. Whether your film actually gets ruined depends on the type of scanner, the film’s sensitivity, and how many times it passes through.
How X-Rays Affect Film
Photographic film works because silver halide crystals react to energy. Light is the intended energy source, but X-rays are far more powerful and penetrate the film canister easily. When X-ray radiation hits those crystals, it creates what’s called a latent image, a chemical change that only becomes visible after the film is developed. The result is fogging: dark patches or waves on the negative that appear as white or washed-out areas on a print.
Fogging reduces contrast and adds a murky background across the entire frame. It doesn’t carry any useful image information. Instead, it sits underneath your actual photos like a layer of haze, making shadows less deep and highlights less clean. On black-and-white film, the effect is especially noticeable because you lose those rich, deep blacks that define the look of the stock.
Carry-On vs. Checked Baggage Scanners
Not all airport scanners pose the same risk. Traditional carry-on X-ray machines use relatively low radiation levels and are unlikely to damage film rated ISO 800 or lower on a single pass. These are the older cabinet-style machines you’ve walked past for decades.
Checked baggage scanners are a completely different threat. They use high-intensity X-rays that operate out of sight, and Kodak warns they will fog and ruin unprocessed film of any speed, whether it’s been shot or not. You have no control over what happens to checked luggage, and no way to request gentler treatment. Never put unprocessed film in checked bags.
The bigger concern now is that many airports worldwide have replaced their carry-on scanners with CT (computed tomography) machines. Unlike traditional X-ray cabinets that send a single beam through your bag, CT scanners use multiple radiation beams from different angles to build a 3D image. They’re significantly more powerful, and Kodak has confirmed that these newer CT scanners fog all unprocessed film, regardless of speed. This is a growing problem because CT scanners are becoming standard equipment at security checkpoints in the US, Europe, and Asia.
Film Speed and Vulnerability
Faster film is more sensitive to X-ray damage because its silver halide crystals are designed to react to smaller amounts of energy. Film rated at ISO 100 or 200 can survive a few passes through a traditional (non-CT) carry-on scanner without visible problems. ISO 400 has a bit less margin. Film rated ISO 800 and above is noticeably more vulnerable, and anything at ISO 1600 or higher can show fogging from even a single traditional scan.
With CT scanners, speed ratings don’t matter much. The energy level is high enough to affect slow and fast film alike.
Cumulative Damage Adds Up
X-ray exposure is cumulative. Each pass through a scanner adds to the total radiation your film has absorbed, and the damage doesn’t reset between scans. A multi-leg trip with four or five security screenings exposes your film to four or five doses.
One film photographer documented sending rolls through 22 traditional X-ray scans. Low-speed color film (ISO 200) appeared largely fine to the naked eye, but black-and-white rolls showed noticeably noisy shadows and lost the deep blacks the stock normally produces. Even when damage isn’t dramatic, experienced shooters can spot the difference: slightly muddier shadows, a touch more grain than the stock should have, and a subtle loss of contrast in the darkest tones.
The practical takeaway is that a single pass through a traditional carry-on scanner probably won’t ruin your ISO 400 film. But if you’re connecting through three airports on one trip, you’re tripling the dose, and the margin shrinks fast.
What X-Ray Damage Looks Like
Fogging from X-rays doesn’t produce sharp lines or obvious marks the way a light leak does. It shows up as an overall loss of contrast, a raised “floor” of density across the negative that makes everything look slightly flat. Shadows that should be clean and black instead appear grayish or muddy. In more severe cases, you might see uneven patches or wave-like patterns across the frame. The effect is sometimes subtle enough that you wouldn’t notice it on a single roll, but comparing a scanned roll side by side with one that never went through an X-ray machine reveals the difference.
How to Protect Your Film
The TSA recommends putting undeveloped film in your carry-on bag and requesting a hand inspection at the checkpoint. Security officers in the US are generally required to honor this request, though policies vary by country. Pack your film in a clear plastic bag so it’s easy to pull out and show separately.
Lead-lined bags, once a popular option, are no longer recommended. When the X-ray operator can’t see through the bag, they typically increase the machine’s power until they can, which defeats the purpose entirely and may expose your film to a higher dose than it would have received otherwise.
For professional or motion picture film, Kodak’s guidance is straightforward: never let unprocessed film go through any X-ray scanner if you can avoid it. This applies equally to unexposed rolls still in the box and to shot rolls waiting to be developed. If you’re shipping film, use a courier that doesn’t X-ray packages, or have it hand-inspected at every point in the chain.
If hand inspection isn’t available and you’re stuck with a traditional (non-CT) scanner, keep your film to ISO 400 or lower and minimize the number of passes. If the airport uses CT scanners at carry-on checkpoints, hand inspection is the only safe option.