Photo experts, I need your help. I just had two rolls of film developed and every single picture was grainy [link] and washed out [link] This is two rolls of film taken over a year but every picture looked just about this bad-- is this the fault of the photo developing place or did something happen to my film? I'm sure both rolls went through an airport baggage xray at some point.

Was it the carry-on x-ray or the one for checked baggage? The carry-on one is safe for film, but the checked baggage one generally isn't.

t edit: though that doesn't look like the sort of damage that x-rays will generally do -- most x-ray-damaged pictures I've seen have been more streaky than grainy.

A candidate for mycathatesyou.com, no?

OK, I just looked it up, and that looks exactly like the sort of "x-ray fog" that the newer kinds of checked-baggage screening machines can do. The damaged negatives that I'd seen before were from the older kind of equipment.

Always the checked baggage one.

OK, I just looked it up, and that looks exactly like the sort of "x-ray fog" that the newer kinds of checked-baggage screening machines can do. The damaged negatives that I'd seen before were from the older kind of equipment.

Ugh. I had no idea it was that bad; I hadn't seen it this bad before. Guess it's time to go digital!

[link]

It can't be fixed after developing.

General rule for film is, unless you have absolutely no choice, don't put undeveloped film into a checked bag. If you must, then put it in a lead bag. (Which will always get your bag searched -- my bag was a mess after going through several international airports with a lead bag of film.)

Film is just about always fine in the carry-on scanners. If you want to be totally paranoid about it, you can put the film in a lead bag inside a carry-on -- the security people get a bit annoyed at that, but you can be totally sure that it's safe.

If you're going to hand carry, I'd recommend a ziploc bag with all your film in it. New film is best in the original boxes, and spent film in neither a box nor the opaque plastic canisters, since they'll probably open anything not still factory sealed. If you have the transparent canisters you should be okay.

Bon, I was going to say I've gotten pictures like that when the batteries were dying but two whole rolls is a bit much. It sounds like Hil may have diagnosed it.

Was it an autofocus camera, Bon?

Uhhh...what do you mean? (I don't know.)