Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film • Hacker News Board

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#61

Post by chungus_khan » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

colejohnson66 wrote: post #2

Genuine question: Why do people still use film anymore? I know some big movie studios do sometimes use it (The Hobbit comes to mind), but I don’t understand why anyone would use film when we have DSLRs that can have resolutions over 30 megapixels. EDIT: added “why” at beginning

In addition to the other points, film X-ray machines are still in widespread use because unless there's a specific need for a digital one it's hard to justify the enormous expense of the upgrade (and some people prefer looking at film output over digital as well, if it's what they're used to).

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#62

Post by dmix » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:05 PM UTC

hadtodoit wrote: post #9

Flying out of SFO, the security gave me a heads up about putting aside film. They are not TSA, but at least they had been briefed.

That's good, hopefully they keep a sign up or tell TSA agents as my spouse uses film regularly on trips and I'm sure not everyone will find out.

Just another headache traveling through the US I guess.

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#63

Post by rangibaby » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

colejohnson66 wrote: post #2

Genuine question: Why do people still use film anymore? I know some big movie studios do sometimes use it (The Hobbit comes to mind), but I don’t understand why anyone would use film when we have DSLRs that can have resolutions over 30 megapixels. EDIT: added “why” at beginning

1. People enjoy the craft and experience of doing it. Why knit? Why paint on a canvas when you could do it in Photoshop? Why do people still buy records when Spotify etc exist?

2. Medium and large format film still look as good or better than digital 35mm, and are still affordable for hobbyists

3. The look of BW film can’t be replicated by current color digital cameras without an expensive (in time or money) modification to the sensor

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#64

Post by shoes_for_thee » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:07 PM UTC

anfractuosity wrote: post #47

On the topic of film, this little short video "Behind the Film - Inside the ILFORD factory" is cool - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXpoALotxf0 They also have a lab that do b&w prints from digital files on photo paper interestingly.

I'm not in a place where I can watch the video right now, but are they doing this via like.. an LCD-equipped enlarger? This would be pretty cool. In the early 2000s I did a lot of experimentation with printing digital negatives to transparencies and printing them in a traditional darkroom or using alt processes.

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#65

Post by Filligree » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:07 PM UTC

daveFNbuck wrote: post #46

Seenso wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the scanners for carry-on luggage, not the ones you walk through. They don't let you carry anything through the walk-through scanners.

Looks like I responded to the wrong comment. I thought I was responding to someone who said they were worried about walking through scanners that would damage negatives.

Oh, you were. I just corrected myself after reading the article.

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#66

Post by QuarterReptile » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

morsch wrote: post #54

cguess wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's for carry on. Checked luggage goes through WAY more radiation and you should never put undeveloped film or anything else that's radiation sensitive in your checked luggage.

Details: https://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q12361.html

For reference, 300-350mrem is a decent estimate of your annual dose of radiation. If you fly a lot, smoke, or live in areas where the ground releases significant amounts of radon, your own annual dose can be twice that.

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#67

Post by anfractuosity » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

shoes_for_thee wrote: post #64

anfractuosity wrote: post #47

On the topic of film, this little short video "Behind the Film - Inside the ILFORD factory" is cool - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXpoALotxf0 They also have a lab that do b&w prints from digital files on photo paper interestingly.

I'm not in a place where I can watch the video right now, but are they doing this via like.. an LCD-equipped enlarger? This would be pretty cool. In the early 2000s I did a lot of experimentation with printing digital negatives to transparencies and printing them in a traditional darkroom or using alt processes.

Good question, I don't think they talk about the b&w digital prints in the video afraid. https://www.harmanlab.com/ is the website for that, which I'm just looking at, but can't see the machine they use at the moment.

It looks like they may use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightJet for the bigger prints

They seem to use a specific type of paper for the machine too - https://www.harmantechnology.com/amfile/file/download/file/1...

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#68

Post by cm2187 » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:12 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #37

How much radiation would it take to flip a bit on an SSD? What about RAM (many people send their laptops through in a suspended-to-RAM state)? I would assume that RAM is more susceptible, since we still store a single bit per RAM cell, while some SSDs now store multiple bits per cell, but I've never tried to do the math on "what would it take to actually make these problems start to appear?" Might be a fun exercise..…

Don't SSD have some kind of cyclic redundancy check?

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#69

Post by gambiting » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

colejohnson66 wrote: post #2

Genuine question: Why do people still use film anymore? I know some big movie studios do sometimes use it (The Hobbit comes to mind), but I don’t understand why anyone would use film when we have DSLRs that can have resolutions over 30 megapixels. EDIT: added “why” at beginning

So I know someone who is very much into photography but is of modest means. Turns out you can pick up a second hand analog camera and film for it for very little money, and achieve quality that you'd need something like a Canon EOS 5D for otherwise. Obviously there are things you can't do with the analog that you can with the 5D, but not everyone is made out of money.

Re: Kodak Alaris warns the TSA's new airport CT scanners can damage undeveloped film

#70

Post by klodolph » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

anfractuosity wrote: post #58

plapetomain wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They also have a lab that do b&w prints from digital files on photo paper interestingly. Not new or uncommon. The “last generation” of photo finishing (think drug store 1 hour photo mats) since the early 2000s mostly used digital printers. They called them laser printers no less (not a xerographic process, but direct exposure) The developed film was scanned and this of course allowed them to give you a CD cheaply.…

Yeah, I've had colour prints before, but not really seen anyone do true b&w prints.

It wasn’t super uncommon in the past, because you could just use the same equipment with different chemistry. When I say “not super uncommon” what I mean is that you might have a couple different shops with a B&W (non-chromogenic) option in the same city.