What Happens if Photo Film Goes Through TSA's CT Scanners?

es, I sacrificed a roll of precious 35mm roll of Portra 400 to test out, side-by-side, if sending your undeveloped, unshot roll through TSA's new CT scanners would actually make a difference.

Watch the YouTube video below for a full overview.

TLDR: Your film will be minimally affected by one scan in a TSA CT scanner if you shoot on the roll after it has been CT scanned.

However, if you've already taken your photos and haven't had the roll developed yet, the scanner will make your photos grainer with noticeable loss of details in the shadows. My guess is that this effect compounds with more CT scans.

Check out these examples where the unaltered roll shot is on the left, and the CT-scanned roll is on the right:

Left photo from unaltered roll. Right photo from TSA CT scanned roll.

With the church and bike wheel photos, the difference is negligible if at all noticeable. The difference is more noticeable when you see the photo of my friend Zawwar in his black shirt. The CT scanned photo is clearly grainier with less detail than the unaltered roll.

Watch the YouTube video above to see a few more examples and to see an example of what it looks like when your film roll goes through a TSA CT scanner after shooting your photos but before getting them developed.

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