I am unable to find a reliable source for my statement. It may be hearsay as I did a lot of google searching and everything I read said the cards can't be harmed by airport security . Kodak site says cards can't be harmed. Sandisk site says cards can't be harmed. Neither of these sites however differentiate between airport x-ray machines and the walk-through airport scanner. They speak of the checkpoint machines as though the xray and scanner is the same item or they say call the xray machine a scanner.
I thought I had read my info on an ASMP advisory, but I could not find the advisory anywhere on ASMP's web site.
Since I made my original post I see two other forum members also feel that scanners can harm memory cards.
While on a Diamond Princess cruise to Alaska I had two 2 gigabite Hitachi microdrive cards with me and I was careful to make certain my cards only went through the ships xray machines when returning to the ship each time I went on a land excursion. One time I preceded my wife through the xray and scanner checkpoint and I had already picked up my camera from the xray belt and put it around my neck. My wife who had not yet gone through the checkpoint asked me to come back to the gangway and help her with her packages. I started to walk back through the scanner portal as that was the only way I could return to where she was waiting in line. The ships security officer grabbed me and pointed at my camera and said "no camera, no camera, no camera" and he wouldn't allow me to walk through the scanner with my camera. He spoke little English but it was clear to me he was concerned with my digital camera passing through the scanner. I figured he had been instructed to not let cameras go through the scanner. I also assumed his information was the same as mine concerning digital memory cards and metal detecting scanners although I never really knew for sure why he he became so insistent.
My above anecdote certainly is no proof.
Maybe real life testing needs to be done with a sacrificial 16mb starter card, a determined photographer, and a friendly security guard who has control of a scanner.
Is "friendly security guard" an oxymoron?
Walter
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On Friday, July 23, 2004, at 08:14 PM, Rand Flory wrote:
Walter wrote:
Your memory cards can go through the xray machine in or out of your camera but do not allow them to go through the metal detecting scanner. That means don't put your memory card in your pocket and then walk through the scanner.
This doesn't seem right. I have read MANY warnings about how to travel
through airports with photo gear, and I have not heard of this before. [And
for what it's worth, the risk to film at less than 400 ISO is pretty
negligible if you only have to pass through a few X-rays.]
I am willing to be educated, however. But I need to see the data about this
from a reliable source. I guess the fact that I did my postgrad work in
Missouri shows sometimes.
So, Walter, do you have a reference?
ciao
rand
